Little Dandelions
by Meadowlark27
Summary: It only takes fifteen years for Katniss to agree.
1. Fifteen

_A/N: I wasn't planning on posting this for another few weeks, but I simply couldn't resist! This first chapter is essentially a summary of the first fifteen years in the post-Mockinjay realm. I've got to admit, it's a little somber. But we all know that Everlark babies are blessings, so I promise, things will lighten up next chapter! (And at the end of this one, if you manage to make it through this sea of angst. Best of luck... you'll need it!)_

* * *

**Chapter 1 – "Fifteen"**

_Peeta_

The first time I ask her, and I mean really _ask_ her, a year has passed since she granted me permission to do so. Autumn has flooded Twelve full-force by the time she's due for the inoculation, and the week before she's scheduled to receive hers, I pull her into the bakery around lunchtime and sneak her to the back. With trembling fingers and an unsteady voice, I ask her the question that's been stinging in the back of my brain for weeks.

_Do you want to try for a baby?_

Maybe it was the brutal brusqueness of the question, or the lack of warning, or the fact that we've only been married six months and this question clearly _petrifies_ her; her resolve suddenly steels and she doesn't react for ages. And then, abruptly, before I can rally an apology, she's bolting for the back door, disappearing into the dark hood of the woods. I wish I could follow her. But even if my clumsy footfall wasn't inapt for the forest, and even if I wasn't so directionally challenged, the woods are a slice of the world that belongs uniquely to Katniss in a union so personal she would shatter if it were to be broken.

Since we returned to Twelve two years ago, and even since she finally allowed me to marry her this past spring, Katniss has been unpeeling herself layer by layer to let me in… but she still needs space. I know that. She knows that. She may have found a way to open up to me, to tell me of her nightmares and personally hand me the needle that sews up her wounds, but her willing exposure can only exist alongside a few intermittent hours of isolation. The woods provide this for her. When she can't breathe, and she needs to think—about hunting, about the Games, even sometimes about Prim, as we've decided that facing our fears and our sorrows are the only way of conquering them—she can go there, to the trees, to her secret wonderland. And I accept it, _welcome_ it, by extension. It keeps her alive and relaxed and _happy_, to some bizarre degree, and she always comes back to me at the end of the day. So I have no justification to complain. As long as Katniss is content, I can be as well.

And so, evidently, when I realize that I've so blatantly upset her by asking her if she's ready to have a child when we're only nineteen, I can't help but regret my boldness. It doesn't matter that I want a baby—maybe not now, but eventually—because Katniss is hurt, at _my_ hand, and that is a reality I simply can't stomach. She already has enough weight bearing down on those slim shoulders of hers; how dare I burden her with any more?

The rest of the day drags impossibly slowly at the bakery with self-deprecating thoughts swirling in the back of my mind. At around four o'clock I surrender, closing the shop early—perks of being the owner—and tell my two trusty employees to head home for the night. If it weren't for Haymitch and the second-eldest Hawthorne, Rory, I'm sure my bakery would be in constant chaos; Rory's consistently hard-working and lightens up the place, and Haymitch can at least tally at the register when things get hectic. I'm sure the job serves as an advantageous influence for our old mentor, too, as it keeps him relatively sober and provides him with some much-needed structure.

My walk home seems to stretch a thousand miles, and once I reach my manor in the Victor's Village, my stomach only drops further. All of the rooms are dark, the air stagnant and cold from a day of disuse. _Katniss isn't home,_ I tell myself. But after staggering up the stairs, I notice a thin line of luminescence pooling at the base of the bathroom door; I knock in a frenzy, my hands stiff with tension, but no reply comes, and with panic surging through my veins I push my way into the room.

I find her tucked up in the bathtub, the still water slicing off at her chin. Grey eyes focused on the surface, lips pressed into a hard line, sopping hair still pleated in a tousled braid… she hasn't look so disheveled in months. The wave of understanding that this is my fault, that _I've_ done this to her, stirs my blood and sends resentment for my own stupidity bubbling in my throat. So I crouch by the side of the tub, my fingers parting through the film of liquid and grasping at her hand beneath the water, and I tell her, over and over again, _I'm sorry, Katniss_, until she has a hope of believing me.

For the first five years, my enquiries are tentative; thankfully, she doesn't run away again, but maybe that's because she begins to anticipate the question. I ask her the week before she's scheduled for her pregnancy shot, every year, until it becomes a hopeless habit that can only be broken with one remedy. An answer I want to hear but know will never come; an answer she wants to give but is too afraid and too broken to provide.

At first, this reality is not too difficult to accept. Although she may be healing, the games, the war, and losing Prim have all sequestered parts of Katniss she may never win back. She hasn't yet conquered the nightmares, and on some mornings she can hardly bring herself out of bed, so if she says she's not ready for a baby, I understand. I would rather see Katniss comfortable in her own skin than see her struggling to mother a child she doesn't yet want. I hold tight to my belief that if Katniss would become a mother, she would learn to love that child even more than she loves me—after all, she was more of a mother to Prim than our own mothers were to us—but I don't tell her this. Katniss may have lost bits and pieces of herself because of what she's had to face, but she is still impossibly stubborn and has a short fuse. Yet that's one of the many things I love about her, however masochistic the notion may be. It makes her who she is: the beautifully wild Katniss with every perfect flaw. And one hell of a temper.

Instead of spending those first years of marriage aggressively coercing her into premature motherhood, I occupy my time with loving her ferociously, unconditionally, until she begins to believe that she is deserving of affection. It took some time to discredit her firm belief that she hasn't earned love, that I wouldn't always be there for her, that I was _better off_ without her—is that even possible?—and that she couldn't actually be wanted. It was because of her that I managed to overcome what the doctors in Thirteen said I never could. I still have hallucinations, but most of my memories of her before it all have been restored; I remember most everything now. From every scar to every freckle in her silver eyes. Because of her. Because of all of the patience and the time that she gives to me every day.

In this stretch of time, I fall in love with her more and more with the passing of each hour, from the way she tucks my hair behind my ear, how she arches into my kisses, how she scowls and it's hilarious and _beautiful_ and can be so easily wiped off by my endeavors of peppering kisses over her cheek, neck, collar. Katniss is so easy to adore. Our marriage may not be perfect, as I doubt anyone can boast something so unattainable, but there is never a day in which I wake wishing I was anywhere but with her, her warm body folded in my grasp.

On the fifth year, when I ask her, she alters her response. It's still an ultimate "no," but the delivery is far more elevating. We're lying in bed, sticky with sweat from just a few moments ago—on our wedding night, she made me promise to make love to her every evening for the rest of our lives, which is an oath I've had little difficulty upholding—when I bid:

_What do you think for this year?_

With my fingers trailing lazily up and down the contours of her spine, she arches slightly in my grasp, her hands working through the sweaty curls at the nape of my neck.

_I think I'm happy, Peeta. I really like things the way they are, with you. I don't want it to change._

I smile and press a chaste kiss to her nose, because even greater than my longing for a child is my longing to see her at ease, which is a sensation she's hardly ever come to know. I've done my best to give her all I can, to create some sort of foundation for her to plant her shaky feet on. And if she feels safe with where she's at, I've done my job right.

She uses this same justification the following year, and then the year after that. Its reiteration chips my strength away ever so slightly, but I swallow any rising dissatisfaction. She doesn't need to see even just a sliver of impatience weathering me down. Katniss has a morbid propensity of blaming herself for the pain of others and if she notices something in me, something wrong, she may turn that on herself. So I grin and bear it.

But I must be far less successful than intended, because by the time the eighth year rolls around, I begin to see something rooting deep inside her, something dark, something all-consuming. When I ask her at dinner that night, she can't even muster a response; instead, she thrusts herself out of her chair and shuts herself away in our bedroom, dissolving to a sobbing heap underneath the comforters. It takes me hours to sweet-talk her out from beneath the blanket, and when I do, she sobs into my chest for the remainder of the evening in a string of self-effacing wails.

_I'm not good enough for you, Peeta. _

_I can't give you what you deserve most. _

_How can you want me when I can't give you a baby?_

It kills me to listen to this, to think she actually believes it. Can't she see that the thing I want most is for her to be happy? I don't need a baby. What I need is to see her stunning smile every morning, hear that musical laugh, listen to her quiet lullabies on nights we both can't sleep. I want a baby knowing that it'll be a tiny division of _her_, just another fraction of Katniss that I can love more than life itself. And maybe that's selfish of me. But the sole element of this earth that keeps me anchored into reality, that keeps me breathing, is my impossibly magnificent wife. She alone is more than enough for me, far beyond what I could ever possibly deserve.

In the aftermath of this relapse, I decide Katniss needs to breathe, and we take our first vacation away from Twelve to visit her mother and Annie in Four. She's jittery at first, to say the least, but something about the saline tang of the air and the heat eventually erodes away at her harsh edges. We stay at her mother's small cottage on the beach, occupying our mornings with shoreline strolls and the occasional dip, returning to our guest room in the afternoon to unravel together, taking the time to kiss and to touch and to _love_ by any means possible, no constrains, no worries. It is here more than ever that I begin to notice just how beautiful Katniss has become; how she's traded her slim frame for soft, divine curves, how tiny lines have begun to web from the corners of her eyes from smiling so much, how unbelievably strong and _soft_ her arms and legs are. It's overwhelming, and arousing, and captivating all the same. In the past decade since our return to twelve, Katniss has truly become a _woman_, with every implication and perfect consequence.

Things are better for a while after our visit. Her relationship with her mother has always been strained, only alleviating temporarily after she attended our wedding, but both of us like to believe things are calming between them. Katniss will probably never be able to commiserate with why Mrs. Everdeen did what she did to her and Prim, but she's learned to love her, just as she's learned to love all else that truly matters.

Likewise, she's grown to appreciate Johanna Mason's companionship more than I could've predicted, too. The two of them are different breeds of fire that miraculously coexist; maybe that's why Johanna and Gale get along so well as well. Katniss and Gale foster the same flame against which Johanna's has become so compatible. For Katniss, it may always be a little awkward that her old best friend is with her new one, but having Gale able to refocus his attention from my wife to his own lover is gratifying and relieving for not just her, but me as well. The relationship has brought Gale back into our life, yet it holds him at an arms-length, curbing him at a safe distance. Katniss does need him to some extent, regardless of how she detests to admit it, because he represents one of the limited factions of her old life she still yearns to remember. But she does not need him close. For that, the selfish, minutely jealous part of me is interminably appreciative.

By the time ten years have passed, and then eleven, and twelve, Katniss has painted the two of us into a reality so stable and so oddly comforting that I finally accept my aspiration is hopeless. It's a reality I've known all along, but have been too petrified to admit.

Katniss doesn't want children. At all.

And so on the thirteenth year, I ask her out of habit—and nothing else, except thwarted desire—over breakfast, and she takes all of five seconds to turn me away. I accept it with a smile as I always do, too afraid to hurt her; she's _happy_, which is one of the chief justifications for why she doesn't want a baby. She's afraid that any interruption to the perfect pattern we've obtained could send her swirling back into relapse, into living in constant terror again. I know that this is not true, but Katniss doesn't, and I have to respect her wishes.

But I can't bring myself to quit asking her. The question has become so deeply engrained in the front of my brain that nothing could possibly erase it; I've become nearly robotic, tumbling through the motions as if I'm following the same recipe autumn after autumn.

_What about this year, Katniss?_

Every fall, every year. The question, and the answer, are always the same.

On the fifteenth year, when she stretches up on the tips of her toes, bidding me farewell with a kiss before I head off to the bakery as she does every morning, I force out the question once more. _This is the last time,_ I tell myself, defeat ringing in every corner of my body, my muscles strained and exhausted, my throat thick. I haven't been sleeping well these past few months, rocked with constant dreams of cribs and giggles and bundles and all things that make me feel as miserably nostalgic as they do unmanly. After all, nearly every last one of our friends have found themselves with a child or two, and it pains me to think that I'm the last standing.

Now, all I can think about is tiny fingers and toes that curl, gurgling squeaks, and her eyes on a child with my hair or vice versa. The greedy side of me has begun its overzealous tirade, wishing for more of Katniss to love and to nurture in the form of a baby; but Katniss is enough, I tell myself ceaselessly. She's more than I ever wanted, giving me a love greater than what I prayed for every night when I was younger. _She loves you, Peeta. That'll suffice._

But even those constant repetitions hardly numb the ache that grows each season.

And so when I ask her on that fifteenth year, my muscles tensing as they brace themselves for the eminent rejection, it pierces me at a new angle when she doesn't even respond. My core twists as she kisses me once more, that apologetic expression lodging in those silver eyes I've fallen in love with more and more each day.

She says, "I'll see you for dinner, alright?" And that is all.

The day at the bakery elapses more painfully than ever, as I attempt to smile for not only Haymitch and Rory, but every solitary customer that wanders through the shop, mining deep down in my chest for some sort of energy. I even fish for the resentment I expect to be there, but it's absent, as it's always been. I could never resent Katniss. Myself, yes—for wanting something so blatantly out of reach, and disgracefully convincing myself that it was an actual _possibility_—but never my wife. I simply love her too much.

Instead of bitterness, or deep misery, or even a flicker of hope for the following year, I surprisingly find nothing. I don't _know_ what I feel, what I _should_ feel. How am I supposed to carry myself after being rejected by my wife for fifteen years—by the love of my life, of course, which naturally makes things far more complex—to have a baby? Neither of us are to blame. She doesn't want to be a mother, and I want to be a father. For the first time in our marriage, I suddenly feel so inadequate; our differences, in the past, have always been what brought us closer. Her stubbornness and my tolerance. Her fire, my peace. Her need for love, my willingness to give it. Her ability to restore my old memories, my ability to provide her with new ones. Her addiction to cheese buns, my talent for baking.

It's always worked out so well.

So where did this unassailable divergence arise? _How_?

I take my time closing the bakery that afternoon, partially out of lethargy and partially out of dread for going home, for facing her. For finally admitting defeat. On the walk home, I map the conversation in my head, hopelessly arranging phrases into something satisfactory. _I'm not going to ask you any longer for a child._ Or, _I'm sorry for dragging you through this for so long._ Or, _I'm really, really tired, Katniss._

But when I push my way through the front door, every accumulated idea immediately dissipates as I'm greeted by an uncharacteristically buoyant Katniss. She bounds up to me, wrapping me in those slender, accommodating arms, arching herself up into a tender kiss.

"Welcome home, love," she greets, a flash of esteem filtering through her expression.

And although I can't so easily forget the ache, it wanes slightly, overcome with pleasure from seeing her with such an authentic grin. My beautiful wife, my best friend, the majestically sublime Katniss…

A crinkle forms in between my brows, my nose lifting in the air. "Something smells good."

She bites down on her bottom lip in that adorable way of hers, which she always does out of contented humility.

"I made you dinner."

Although Katniss is well able to take care of herself, and has been for over a decade now, we've routinely left the cooking to me. It's what we've done since my return to Twelve—since Sae relinquished her position as Katniss's chef to me—and has become a habit too comfortable and too appreciated to break. I guess our marriage is all about habits.

She laces her fingers with mine and guides me to the dining room where she's set out two plates, piled with mashed potatoes and green beans and some sort of stew—rabbit? Squirrel?—and I notice that she's lined the table with candles, the gentle aroma of vanilla humming through the room, and—

"Katniss, what is going on?"

She chuckles. "I must be a pretty awful wife if it's a surprise every time I try to do something nice for my husband."

"You're not an awful wife," I tell her, which comes out far less flatteringly than she deserves, but still, it is one of the greatest truths I've come to know. We have our differences, but under no circumstances have I considered that Katniss was anything short of perfect. I attempt to make up for my lackluster response with a tender kiss to her earlobe, causing her to squirm as it always does.

We sit down to eat, and while keeping a hand arced around my knee underneath the table, she proceeds to ask me about my day as any typical wife would, although there's something lingering in her tone that sends my mind reeling. Something is off about her—certainly, it's not unappealing, as nothing is unpleasant whenever Katniss has that grin plastered on her lips that can move mountains and seal valleys, but it's alarming.

So, halfway through our dinner, I flatten my fork at the side of my plate with conviction. Her eyes widen in surprise at the gesture. "Peeta?"

I feel my muscles tensing, every last one, the rigidity rippling through my veins like a wave. "Katniss, please. I don't mean to upset you, but… I really need to know what's going on—"

"Yes," she says, firmly, surely, her eyes dark. And that's all she says.

My brows knit themselves together. "Katniss, this isn't exactly a 'yes or no' kind of question."

"Yes," she repeats, a little more insistent this time. She's holding her fork in between her index in her thumb, twirling it nervously, absentmindedly. Her face is blooming with color, but her eyes are pinned on me with stubborn resolution, and I can tell she's waiting to analyze my reaction, but to _what_, I am unsure.

What is going on?

I screw my eyes shut for a moment, pressing my lips together, shuffling through my mind for some method of decryption; Katniss has never been too difficult to read, whether she likes that or not, but in this moment, my mind runs blank.

My heart is pounding. "I really don't understand—"

"Peeta."

With the sound of my name falling sharply from her lips, my eyes flicker back open to greet an expression I could've never predicted.

She's smiling. That beautiful, radiant, all-consuming smile.

And in a voice so soft, so uncharacteristically gentle, as if her acceptance is a lullaby to fend off every last hindrance of my pleasure, she sings the four impossible words I've been waiting to hear for fifteen years.

"Let's have a baby."

* * *

_Tell me what you think - reviews and PMs are always appreciated! And, of course, you can find me on Tumblr at **a****voirlalumiere**._


	2. Fear

_A/N: Thank you so much for all of the feedback from last chapter! I feel so incredibly blessed. Hopefully, this chapter is worth the bit of a wait! Well, without further ado... Happy readings. :)_

* * *

_**Chapter 2 – Fear**_

_Katniss_

Peeta stares at me for so long that I'm convinced his eyes are literally about to drill themselves from their sockets. His entire body has grown rigid, motionless, like a statue carved of marble rock. For a moment I begin to wonder if he's worked himself into a coma.

The silence begs for reiteration.

"I think I'm ready, Peeta. To have a child. _Your_ child, of course." My voice is weak, truncated, but my words are as genuine as ever. The fear of children—or more simply, the fear of love and of consequent loss—may still bear deep roots. But my desire to grant Peeta's longtime wish has grown stronger. After watching my refusals shred apart my beautifully humble, ceaselessly compassionate husband for fifteen consecutive years, I've reached my limit. Maybe I once had a legitimate reason to reject the idea, but I'm older now. We're older now. Peeta has theoretically been prepping to become a father since he came out of the womb himself_._ I've walled myself into selfish fear for too long, denying him of this simple right, but I can't do it any longer. The pros triumph the cons.

I've been considering it for months, truthfully, since the birth of Oliver Hawthorne. Rory's first son. He married a girl named Laura two years back, and upon the arrival of Little Ollie, I could see something inside Peeta snap. When he held that impossibly small bundle of life in his thick arms, a look of both adoration and confusion swept over his gentle features. He toyed delicately with the child's miniature nose and softly swept his fingers through the boy's dark wisps of hair, and he was smiling through the ache, and it was _then_ that the idea began to germinate in the back of my mind. All of our friends had children at this point. Annie had her son, and Delly married a man from Two and had a ten-year-old daughter. Even Gale had miraculously convinced Johanna six years back to start a family, rearing them with twin boys who sport their father's insistence and their mother's ferocious passion.

Peeta deserves a child, too. More than anyone. His longing for one has more weight than whatever irrational fears may tug at my heartstrings. We're nearly thirty-five now; the war is over, the Games are over. Relationships have reconciled. _Things are better_, really. Not perfect, as they'll never be, but far more steadfast than they've been before. I like to believe I'm safe in my own mind—at least, Peeta has made me feel as if I am.

Out of both anxiety and egoism, I withheld this budding notion until Peeta asked me the same question he's been prodding me with for the past fifteen years. Only this time, his magically blue eyes were void of all expectancy, as if he didn't want to hear my response. Peeta was already crushed, waiting for the rejection he was primed to expect.

It sliced through me to know that this was my fault. That this _pain_, this forfeiture of hope, was because of my selfishness. But Peeta deserved more; he deserves more, still. As he always will.

Thus, there's truthfully one solitary road I can take.

So I tell him over dinner, softening him up with a weak attempt at rabbit stew until I've grasped his full suspicion, and for that reason, his attention.

_Let's have a baby._

And then, awkwardly: _I think I'm ready, Peeta. To have a child. _Your_ child, of course._

He stares at me for quite some time, blinking vacantly, fair cheeks drained and lips slightly parted. For a moment I consider that I've sent him into cardiac arrest. But he looks to be breathing, so that's always a little promising.

And abruptly, before I can even grasp the transfer, he flies from his seat and is suddenly standing beside my chair at the dining room table, his warm, calloused palms bracketing my cheeks as I rise to my feet. A taste of affection begins to swell in my mouth as he beams disbelievingly, _giddily_, down at his wife; the smile is so indisputably genuine, and I suddenly realize how much I've missed it. Peeta's signature grin, the expression that laces me into his warmth and promises me of his concrete devotion, has been gone for too long, replaced with a weak imposter.

But it's back now.

"Are you—is this what you want?" His eyes are misting, growing watery.

_It's what you want. _And Peeta's happiness is my own. It didn't used to be that way, but it is now—_so symbiotic_. I pride myself on the idea that I've recovered to the point of trusting, hoping, loving again. "It'll make you happy."

"I don't want to push you through something you're not ready for," he tells me softly, the words tangled on his tongue. His thumb brushes under my cheek, warming my skin. "If you can't handle—"

I cut off his words with a sharp laugh, my hands snaking around his waist. "Peeta, it's been fifteen years. I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"Are you sure?" His eyes are soft.

I can do nothing more than nod, my own eyes stinging. Peeta's fingers curl around my jaw, his forehead tilting against mine, golden eyelashes fluttering as he blinks out the moisture, and he's laughing. Heat shoots through every fiber in my system, flickering across my skin until I'm electrified. He's holding me now with the strength of a boa but with the gentleness of a fawn, folding me into him until the world around us has disintegrated. We're laughing. Twirling, my feet inches from the floor. And then he's kissing me. His touch is so implausibly tender, so _adoring_, that I feel myself melting in a way that the old Katniss Everdeen would've admonished herself for. That Katniss was independent, so self-concerned, but this Katniss _loves_ Peeta more than life itself. And she loves to see him so euphoric.

"Oh, my god—" He paints the skin of my cheek and my jaw with jubilant kisses until I'm blazing with color. "I didn't think—I never thought you would—" His voice is hushed, ringing like bells; I can't tell if he's speaking more to me or to himself.

"I didn't think I would either," I tell him honestly, which merits another indulgent kiss. But it all makes so much sense now. This moment, when Peeta's happiness is so undiluted and all-encompassing, suddenly compensates for whatever pain or fear may result from the oncoming months.

It makes it all entirely worth it.

* * *

Peeta is insanely reluctant to let me out of his grasp through the evening and into the following morning. Whenever I think he's calmed, and a comfortable silence has settled on our shoulders, he'll abruptly start pressing affectionate kisses all over my skin until I've reduced to a heaping pile of giggles. Peeta loves me so ferociously, more manifestly now than at other times, but it's something I'm not unfamiliar with. And I can't possibly understand how there used to be a time in which I didn't want to reciprocate it.

We both know it'll be a few weeks yet before last year's inoculation loses its efficacy, but this changes nothing. Peeta and I melt into each other through the twilight hours, and he sprinkles indebted _I love you_'s across my sweaty skin time after time, as if I didn't already know. I echo it back every case, because I need him to know that when tonight is over, and when our high has paled, I will still want this. Want him, want us, want a baby. I cannot have him doubting my intentions. So for tonight, I love him as recklessly as I know how.

When morning light slices through the opened window and carves a golden glow into our skin, I move to uncoil myself from Peeta's grasp, but he clings to me tightly.

"Are you sure?" he asks me yet again, no context needed. His cerulean eyes are searching me, probing for doubt. And so evidently praying to find none at all.

I give him what he wants. "As sure as the sunrise."

He grins at me warmly and laces his arms around me, and we find ourselves basking in the budding light of dawn as we do so many mornings. But today is different. For the first time in years, my lungs feel full of air instead of liquid iron, my mind clear and mollified. Watching Peeta suffer from my reluctance had burdened me with a weight I'd hardly thought to acknowledge, but now that it's gone, I suddenly feel it's liberating absence; I am a bird flying from her cage. Free.

Eventually, we're forced to tear ourselves from the other; Peeta must go to work, and I've decided to go visit the district physician. He pleads for me to wait until he can accompany me, but I deny him this much. The clinic is across Twelve's central road from Peeta's bakery, meaning he's only a minute away. If, for some odd reason, he were to be needed at my side, I could let out a scream and literally have him over in seconds.

We stroll toward the center of Twelve together, hand in hand, my cheek pressed delicately to his broad shoulder. The market, reconstructed around a grandiose marble fountain, has fostered itself in the ashes of where the Hob once was. Only this strip of shops is far more accommodating, more _hygienic_ than its predecessor, and although I miss what it once was, this is better for everyone. Trade of game and crafts is hardly necessary to keep anyone alive anymore. We're all surviving.

Peeta drops me off at the door of the clinic with a kiss to my cheek, and then a quicker one over my top lip before he parts for the bakery. I let myself into the lobby, a harsh white room with unsettling artificial lighting. Despite the frequency of my visits, this lobby will never be welcoming. However, the voice that soon greets me is; Twelve's doctor, a young woman by the name of Mae, emerges from the office door, a bright smile lighting up her already gentle features.

"Long time, no see, Mrs. Mellark." She approaches me, extending her hand to touch my elbow. "I'm assuming you're here to make your appointment?"

Despite the fact that I grew up as a daughter to one, I've never particularly liked doctors. I had my fair share in the Capitol, some who were simply operating under strict orders, too few of which actually wanted to help me. Some were there to fix my physical defects. Some were there to patch the scars in my mind. Nevertheless, they've sought to give me what I didn't want in the first place: Help.

But things are easier with Mae. Not once has she pursued me, making my visits more digestible. I can't be corralled, which she knows better than most. I come here on my own terms.

She watches me with soft brown eyes, catching my hesitation. I see something swimming in her irises briefly—hope?—but she soon blinks it away.

"No, actually, I—uh, I think I'm finally ready."

She needs no further explanation. Within an instant, I see excitement coloring her cheeks, although she does put forth a decent attempt at concealing it.

"That's wonderful, Katniss. Really. Peeta must be so pleased."

I giggle at the thought, grazing my index over my lips in thought. "Happy as a clam. Yesterday evening was all hysterics."

"What about you?"

I lift a brow. "What do you mean?"

She offers me a smile. "Are you excited?" she probes gently, but the enquiry shoots a wave of stiffness though my muscles.

Naturally, I feel myself growing defensive. Defensiveness is what I do best, after all. "Of course I'm excited." My voice is a little more acerbic than intended; I bite my tongue to hold anything else at bay. Mae doesn't deserve my insolence. She's just curious—I'm sure her intentions are far from cruel.

_This isn't an interrogation, Katniss,_ I tell myself.

She laughs a little, the tension detracting a bit from my fingers and toes. "Don't worry, I'm not trying to challenge you."

I let out a puff of a sigh. "Yeah."

I feel her fingers curl slightly around the peak of my elbow, the touch compassionate and gentle and _sympathizing_. Although I've rarely accepted sympathy, at the moment, the gesture soothes my heating nerves.

Her almond-shaped eyes crease a little at the corners as she grins. "You know even better than I do how big of a decision this is, Katniss. It's okay to be scared."

A sharp intake of breath swells through my lungs, my fingers coiling against the arc of my palms. My voice bubbles in my throat, eager and blazing to reject her statement. _I'm not scared_. _I can't be scared._ _I'm stronger than that_.

I shake off the feeling. It may come back to bite me later, but fear is something I grew too accustomed to, and by this point I'll avoid it at any cost. I won't let myself be afraid. The old Katniss Everdeen was impenetrably strong—this one can be, too.

Especially with Peeta at her side. He tends to facilitate things.

Mae doesn't even bother taking me to the back. She tosses a few pieces of advice my way regarding the whole process of conception, which seems awfully complicated coming from her. The words like _ovulation_ and _fallopian tubes_ fly straight over my head; I just nod solemnly and feign comprehension. We never learned much on reproduction in school, and if we had, chances are I'd slept through the lesson. It wasn't until this year that I even thought it'd ever pertain to me.

After Mae gives me the brief résumé, I make my way to the bakery to see Peeta again. When I push through the glass door, I find him leaning over the counter and passing a paper sack filled with some sort of pastry to the woman opposite him. But once his stare locks onto me, a smile draws over his cheeks and I find him before me in an instant, those thick arms circling around me both protectively and indulgently.

"It's been so long since I last saw you," I tease.

He kisses my forehead. "Too long. It's always too long."

"You're going to get sick of me, you know."

"Not a chance," he whispers softly through a smile. "Fifteen years strong, and you're still the only girl I see." I know he means it.

He doesn't ask me of my visit with Mae; he doesn't even bring up the topic of children once, as if he's too used to repressing it. Possibly, it's out of respect for my own reservations—he doesn't want to smother me into revocation.

Peeta doesn't once mention the endeavor until that night as I slip into bed after a shower. My skin feels cold, my hair damp and clinging to the fabric of the pillow—I was too lazy to braid it—but he draws me in anyway, every ounce of his heat radiating through my frame.

"Are you afraid?" he asks me, his question soft, nearly plush as it lingers in the air. My gaze meets his, and all I see anchored in his blues is undiluted sympathy, or concern… something along those lines.

And I answer him quickly and with what I've convinced myself to be honest.

"No."

"It's okay if you're a little anxious to—"

"I'm not scared," I push more forcefully, stubbornly. Not only do I feel the inherent need to assert my own might, but I need him to know I'm not second-guessing this. That I'm not second-guessing _him_. He deserves certainty, of all people. "Why should I be?"

His eyes dart to my lips, and then down slightly in shame.

"I am," he admits almost inaudibly.

A frown crosses my brow before I can curb it, my throat constricting. _How can Peeta be afraid of what he's been craving his entire life?_ "Of what?"

"Hurting you," he tells me simply, as if the answer is hanging above my head in bright, flashing lights. "Upsetting you. Not being an adequate husband. An adequate _father_. What if I've been kidding myself this whole time, and I'm not—"

I've never been good with words. So instead, I use the only other force I've found to be consistently yielding. I kiss him, silencing him, coiling myself around him. At first, his reception is stiff and lined with tension. But slowly, surely, his grasp becomes more compliant. He arches into me, bringing me closer until I draw back.

Lifting a finger to swipe a blonde wisp of hair behind his ear, I murmur, "You have nothing to be afraid of." And then I snort. "Except for pregnancy hormones. You think I'm moody _now_—"

"You're really not nervous?"

I shrug. "I don't want to let myself be nervous. You'll be a wonderful father. You'll meet whatever demands I can't. I'm not scared, Peeta—really."

He doesn't probe any farther, yet I'm hardly sure I have him persuaded. But even if he's not convinced, I am. I have nothing to be afraid of—at least, if I continue to tell myself that, it will remain true. There's nothing to fear in a fate so simple, so clear-cut. Not since Peeta has been hoping, anyway. Hope is stronger than fear.

Right?

So I'm not afraid when, later that month, Mae tells me the inoculation should be wearing off. I'm not afraid when I relay this to Peeta, and we begin to try, and I mean _really_ try, shifting our daily patterns to increase our chances. I'm not afraid, not even a pinch, when I go to each of my monthly checkups with Mae to evaluate my progress. To see if I'm pregnant. Which I never am, not after weeks and weeks of modification and fervent efforts.

At first, the lack of results doesn't deter Peeta at all. He tells me it's alright and says that now we just have an excuse to spend our weekends pent-up in our room, which neither of us can complain about too much. And when we're not sealed inside our manor, I pass nearly as much time at the bakery now as I do out in the woods. Whenever he passes me, his hand slips against the small of my back as if to reaffirm that he's _there_, physically, mentally, or by whatever means I need him to be. I used to shy away from contact like this, but now I welcome it so readily; I don't think I'll ever quite understand just how my own capacity for touch evolved over the years, but neither Peeta nor I have a problem for it, so we indulge.

We spend almost too many hours of the day near the other, as if closeness enhances the probability of conception. We dally through the market sometimes, and on other afternoons we journey out to the lake that my father showed me. _The lake we'll someday show our children._ As autumn dwindles, it's too cold to swim but the water has not glassed over in ice yet, so we fold ourselves up on the shoreline, dipping our toes in the sharp cold of the pool.

Things are easy, at first. Maybe not fruitful, but Peeta's happy just to be trying. And I'm happy to see him so hopeful, smiling constantly, as if his lips have frozen into a perpetual grin.

But as winter rumbles through Twelve, he begins to grow a little restless. Mae tells us that it's still early, but neither Peeta nor I had thought it would take much time. She takes samples, runs tests. Peeta tries to smile through it encouragingly, but it's not easy on either of us.

Soon December passes, and January comes to visit, bringing harsh storms and warm fires. Maybe it's the change in weather that drives Peeta to become more passionate, but impulsively so. As if he's growing impatient. He holds tighter, presses harder, kisses longer. We curl up by the fire every night and memorize the edges and the curves of the other's body over and over again as if it's the first time, or as if it's the last time.

And then one morning, I realize I'm late. Six days late. But after the ceaseless stress and malnutrition from when I was younger, irregular cycles aren't completely out of the ordinary for me, so I hardly note it. But then a week later, I wake to a violent lurch in my core that sends me darting to the bathroom.

I hide the symptoms well from Peeta, not wanting to drag him into my mess. The last thing I need is to get his hopes up, or to elicit his concern. But after a week the sickness doesn't abate, and I venture to Mae's, only to hear the words that I'd promised myself I had no reason to dread in the first place.

_Congratulations, Katniss._

And without any warning, without any prior indication, the panic hits.

The calmness and the reassurance that had managed to keep hold of me for these past few months disintegrates into ash all around me, replaced with a sickening surge of terror. It sweeps through my body, seizing my core, causing me to wretch, my body chilled and bursting with heat at the same time. It's unreal and horrifying and absolutely _incinerating_. The Girl on Fire has returned, however ironic.

_This is what we wanted, though,_ I tell myself as I stumble out into the district square, hands crossed both protectively and warily over my belly. _It's what we've been trying for._

But suddenly, the want seems so irrational. Before, I'd been thriving in the grey area between two realities. I'd graduated from disappointing Peeta, year after year, to finally promising what he wanted and what I dreaded without actually _giving_ it to him. Things were easy that way. We were both happy that way. It was all theoretical, all abstract.

Now, it's real. It's as real as my fingers and my toes, as real as my husband, as real as the hard-packed ground beneath my feet.

My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am from District 12. Peeta has been waiting for me to want a baby for fifteen years. Now I am pregnant. And I am hopelessly afraid.

* * *

_Any questions, comments, concerns, or even pieces of advice are very welcome! And, of course, you can find me on Tumblr at **avoirlalumiere.**_


	3. It

_Hey all! I'm excited to share this chapter with you… an old friend makes an appearance! I missed writing her. ;)_

_Happy readings!_

* * *

**Chapter 3 – It**

_Katniss_

_I am pregnant._

The three words reverberate off of every wall of my skull, the decibel earth-shattering, my entire body filled with ice and fire all the same.

I'm tucked up on a branch twenty-some odd feet from the ground, my firm legs bowed up childishly into my chest. How ironic. I'm acting like a child when I will soon be having one of my own.

I don't remember much from how I got here, up in this tree, deep underneath the cloak of the woods. I remember stumbling through the district square. Standing at the door of the bakery, lifting trembling hands for the knob, but unable to bring myself to open it. Rory was working the register, and the moment his eyes met with mine I thought, _What if that was Peeta_? and I found myself sprinting for the tree line, Twelve all but a blur on my tail.

My body craves Peeta's solace. The comfort he always offers. But a too-large sector of my core aches at the thought of him; he'd be so ecstatic if I told him, jumping off walls and kissing things, probably. At the moment, I'm anything but that. I'm well aware that I _should_ be at least slightly pleased with this reality—that all this hard-work has finally been compensated for—yet nothing but terror and self-loathing rips through my veins, turning my blood to flame.

I can't face him. I can't let him see what's happening to me.

The sky overhead falls a deep shade of violet as the sun sinks just out of view, and I tell myself to move, but my muscles resist. I don't want to go home. I don't want to see the man who's half the reason I'm in this position. The man who has wanted _this_ all along. Without Peeta, none of this would've happened.

I shake my head and scold myself for the inkling of blame I've assigned him; he certainly doesn't deserve that. He never could deserve resentment. But I suppose that in severe moments of stress, I'm not always so rational. All I feel is _fear_, this all-consuming, terrorizing horror, that only scorches hotter with every second. Since the ending of the war seventeen years ago, I'd thought that I'd managed to escape this kind of terror. I haven't felt it since before Peeta married me two years later. Surely, there's been moments in which I've been scared—when Peeta has an episode, when I hear an unfamiliar sound in the woods—but nothing like _this_.

And it brings along a second emotion I'm a little more familiar with, but it hurts no less. I know I shouldn't be so afraid, and for that, I resent everything I've become. I'd fooled myself into believing I could be the good wife that gave Peeta what he deserved and nothing less, but here I sit, curled up in a bough yards from the forest floor, feeling _regret_.

It was ridiculous for me to believe I was ready for a child. I'll _never_ be ready for a child. My love is deficient, faulty, broken—either I love too much, or not enough. The moment this baby comes into the world, I'll either be so confused, so _detached_ that it'll rip both me and Peeta apart, or I'll love this child more than life itself, and since nothing in this life proves consistent, surely it'll be taken from me. Everything is always taken from me. In this crazy hell I've come to call home, Peeta is the only thing that has remained throughout it all. But the heavens have already been too generous by giving me him.

As the world around me fades to black, I finally bring myself to descending back to the forest floor. An electric pulse flies down my spine at the thought that I won't be able to do this much longer. (I imagine that climbing trees during the latter half of pregnancy is generally frowned upon.) Here, now, I find a spark of resentment igniting in my core. Even though it's only the size of a little peanut at this point, whatever is inside my belly is siphoning off my freedom drop by drop.

This life is not my own anymore.

I'm trapped.

The air I need to breathe evades my lungs and I find myself gasping the entire walk back to the district, back to the Victor's Village, back home. I've always found myself fighting for control, for a grasp on the situations before me. But now, this circumstance renders me powerless, and I couldn't feel weaker.

It's long past nightfall by the time I reach the doorstep of the Mellark residence. My hands are quivering as I grasp the knob, throwing it open and pushing myself inside.

Immediately I'm greeted with a frantic pair of baby blues, their depth and their concern instantly washing me with guilt.

"Katniss—" My name has always sounded so natural coming off his tongue, but here, it's distorted and choked. His hair is ruffled, skin tired and pale; it's clear he's been pacing through the room in wait—but for how long? He steps toward me, opening his arms to take me in as he always does.

But suddenly, my throat constricts; I fend him off with my forearms, brushing past him. He stops mid-movement, his brow furrowing in a cocktail of puzzlement and agony, and it twists my heartstrings to see him like this. But I can't touch him. I can't let him touch me. I need to be alone, to breathe, to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do.

"I—I need to—" _What? What do I need?_ I do no more than shake my head and begin my ascent up the stairs. He doesn't even try to stop me, as he knows that force is futile against classic Katniss willpower—and Peeta is far too gentle, which consistently triumphs over his insistence—but he does follow a few feet behind.

"Did I do something?" he asks softly as I reach the top, his voice strained as if it's being shoved through cloth; I fly toward the bedroom, my palms splaying out against the wood of the door and pushing it back.

I shake my head fervently, turning around to see him standing a yard or so away from the door, clearly providing me with the berth I want. After fifteen years of marriage, Peeta surely knows exactly when I need space, and what boundaries he shouldn't dare cross. "You haven't done anything." _Well, technically, you've done everything, but_—"Just let me be. Please."

I don't wait for his reaction before I slam the door behind me, diving into the pile of comforters on the bed and burying myself in the fabric. Once my face digs into the pillow, I unleash a screech so loud it could easily wake all of Twelve; thankfully, most of it is muffled by the pillow.

As the scream pours from my lungs, leaving me empty and cold, the sound is soon replaced by choked whimpers, and I curl up into a ball and reduce to a pile of sobs. _I've ruined everything._ My own freedom, my marriage with Peeta, that one sliver of happiness I'd thought I'd finally achieved. But now I've been flung back to square one, to the very beginning, where I have to pioneer my way through the motions all over again.

Only this time, there's no relieving promise of a clean slate. I have a bean-sized bundle of cells anchored in my core that cannot be erased and, certainly, will only grow, straining and stretching my body at will, and I'm powerless to stop it.

_It._

I don't even know what to call it. A fetus? A baby? A little rolly-polly organism? Unlike how I think I should, I feel no maternal connection—when am I supposed to? _How_ am I supposed to?

How the hell am I going to be able to love this child? I don't know how to be a mother. Every day, I'm still learning how to become a good _wife_, and I've had fifteen years of practice. Neither Peeta nor I have guidance when it comes to parenting; my father left us before he could teach me his tricks, and I hardly remember my own mother as anything but an absent mute. Peeta's mother, on the other hand was always abusive and cold, and his father, although certainly the source of Peeta's gentleness and genuine virtue, was weak in the shadow of his wife and let her bully their children. Neither of us have solid role models to sculpt our trade after.

But Prim would've made a good mother. She would've known what to do.

_Prim._ It only sends deeper sobs ripping through my chest, my grip on my knees tensing as I curl more tightly around myself, contorting, twisting. It takes hours, but eventually, my chokes dull to whimpers, my muscles pliable and sore from extensive rigidity, and I drift to sleep.

My subconscious has mercy on me tonight and doesn't impose any nightmares on my fragile mind, but I suppose the reality I wake to isn't much better. The bed is cold, and when I flip beneath the covers I peek up to see Peeta crumpled up on the opposite end of the mattress, his handsome features contorted in muted agony. My stomach churns to see him like this, and out of habit, I lift a hand to reach for him, but I stop myself.

He is miles away. It feels as if my skin is coated in an icy glaze as the bitter winter air wafts through the open window, kissing my flesh, freezing me to my bones. Peeta still sleeps with the shutters open, two decades later, regardless of outside temperature. Usually, it has no dramatic effect on either of us, as we keep each other warm throughout the evening.

But not last night.

I curl back up into a ball, too aggravated and too ashamed to face him this morning. I end up feigning sleep. So when I feel the mattress creak as Peeta stirs, and then hear a gentle sigh puff through his lips, I still my resolve. I can feel him waiting, patiently, as if he thinks his stare alone can wake me. But he doesn't resort to anything else. When I don't respond, he pushes off the bed. Sounds of creaking dresser drawers and gentle coughs and articles of clothing pooling on the floor lull me back to sleep, and when I wake again, he's gone.

My stomach is in knots as I drag myself from the bed. Regret bands in my core as I think of what I'm putting my husband through today—forcing a smile at work despite worrying about his wife at home because, in all honesty, Peeta is the greatest worrier I know—but I swallow it, over and over again, until I can at least pretend I'm able to ignore it.

The woods don't welcome me today. I squander an hour of my time propped against the base of a tree, yet instead of feeling calmed by the isolation I, once again, feel suffocated. Because it's not just me anymore. It never will be "just me" again.

I quickly grow restless and decide that maybe silence is not my best course of action. I can't tell Peeta yet—not merely because I'm not sure _how_, but also because I don't want to ruin this moment for him with my lack of enthusiasm—but I need to let someone in, someone who knows how I feel, and can help.

Typically, I don't actively seek help—it's not in my nature. But desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose.

When I return to the house, I clasp the black telephone that both Peeta and I hardly ever put to use and dial the only person I know will be able to offer me any assistance.

"Hello?" Her voice is sharp as always, but it's grown more patient over the years, as necessary. I guess that's what motherhood does to you.

"Johanna, I need your help."

Her laugh echoes from the other side of the line, and surprisingly, it's the first sound since I found out I was pregnant that offers me any comfort. "Wow. Mrs. Mellark, you must be pretty desperate. When was the last time you asked anyone for help?"

My capacity for tolerance is at an all-time low, and instead of flirting around her antics, I spare myself the time and the irritation.

"I'm pregnant."

All I hear in the silence is a little, surprised cough. But she quickly recovers.

"Pegleg finally put a bun in that oven. Damn. Tell him congrats for me."

I cringe. If I was in a better mood, I'd at least partly acknowledge the pun, but my patience is thin. "That's my problem, Jo. I haven't told him."

Another short pause follows. "When did you find out?"

"Yesterday."

"And is it… were you planning on the kid?" she asks evenly. I nearly expect her to poke fun at me, as classic Johanna Mason would, but her professionalism doesn't wane. Maybe being a mother herself has made her more empathetic to this sort of circumstance. It's what I'd hoped for when I came to her, after all—if anyone could understand unalloyed fear of parenthood, it'd be Johanna.

My fingers nervously twirl around the phone cord. "Yes. We've been trying for a few months now."

"But you're surprised?" There's not even an ounce of acidity in her tone. For a moment, it almost sounds as if she's conducting an interview. Or as if she's a doctor speaking to her patient.

"I don't really know. I mean, I've been expecting this to happen, but it just didn't seem like it could be _real_. Like I'd promised Peeta something to make him happy without truly thinking about what would come next when I actually got pregnant. Sorry, that probably doesn't make much sense."

"No, it does," she gives me, her tone brimming with empathy. "I wasn't really ready to start a family when I did with Gale. I thought I was ready, but when I found out that _I_ was pregnant, everything seemed so much more serious."

I reply weakly, "That's how I feel."

"That's alright. You're scared. There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, Peeta's not the one who has to incubate a seedling in his stomach for nine months and then miraculously pop it out. He's got it easy. But you… everything is changing for you. You have to accommodate so much more, and so there's nothing wrong with you being freaked out."

She eases my nerves just slightly, but not all of the fear is mitigated.

A silence envelopes the both of us before I manage to squeak out, nearly inaudibly, "When do you stop being afraid?"

She thinks about it, _really_ considering it; it takes several moments before she laughs, "Never, not really."

My teeth clench. "Fantastic."

On the other end of the line, she releases another chuckle. "But I guess that fear sort of changes, if that makes you feel any better. It becomes less selfish, I suppose. At first, you're afraid of what this baby will do to change _your_ life, and how _you_ feel sick and _your_ back hurts and how _you_ can't scale any evergreen trees anymore… over time, you'll start fearing more _for_ them, and less for you. You'll accidentally trip and worry that something has happened to your kid, not if you rolled your ankle. You'll start getting cramps and freak out, thinking something is wrong with the pregnancy, but you won't be afraid of the actual pain. And once the little nugget comes… you'll worry when you hear too much silence, or when his or her skin is too warm, or when he or she gets a cough... Being a mother is scary stuff, Katniss."

"Then why the hell do people do it?"

She laughs at this, a shrill, genuine cackle resonating over the wire, and it eases the burden from my shoulders a bit more. "Because it's so _gratifying_, Brainless. Trust me, you won't start understanding it until you see that first ultrasound. I'll bet you a lifetime supply of lumber that Peeta is going to think you're the most beautiful thing on the planet the moment you start showing, even though you feel like you've just been hit by a train half the time. But when you start to realize that it's not just a kid growing inside of you, but that it's a piece of both you and Peeta… it's odd, Katniss. You know I'm not one for romanticized garbage. And being pregnant and being a parent are certainly never easy, but… it's wonderful, really. Avery and Jude can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, but they're everything to me. Ask me ten years ago if I wanted to have kids and I'd probably chop off your leg with my axe, but now, there's nothing in this entire world that I'd trade for them."

A slight smile plays at the corners of my lips as I realize the full extent of Johanna's likeness to me. She's been through exactly what's knocking on my front door right now, yet she survived, and is miraculously _happy_.

"My only advice for you," she continues, "is don't start to push Peeta out. I did that to Gale at first. He got protective really quickly, and told me I should stay in the house most of the time, which _naturally_, I wasn't too eager about. You're like me in that respect. You don't like letting down your walls so people can look out for you. But, dear god, _let the baker boy pamper you_. You'll need it. Pregnancy is ten times easier with someone at your side; it'll be a thousand times better if you have someone as kind and as supportive as Peeta."

My stomach curdles again with the realization that I've been doing exactly that to him. Pushing him away. Erecting walls.

"I just don't know how to tell him, Johanna."

"Here's what you do," she begins, her voice low and severe. "You walk up to him. Hold his hand. Open your mouth. Say these words—and you may want to write this down, because this is pretty good stuff—but you tell him, 'I'm pregnant, Peeta.' I know, I know, it's hard work, but I think you can handle it."

"Jo—"

Her voice immediately softens, transforming into a nearly desperate plea. "Really, Katniss. Just _tell_ him. He's going to find out eventually, and let's be honest: It'd be better hearing it from you than from some random customer at the bakery saying, 'Well, Mellark, your wife's looking a bit chubby.'"

I roll my eyes. If only she was actually here.

A sigh trickles from the opposite end of the line, her flippant tone washing clean from her words. "I know it's scary, Katniss. But Peeta can help you. That boy will do everything in his power to make you feel better."

_I know._ With this assertion, a small smile threatens at my lips. There are few truths in this world that seem to resonate wherever I go, and without a doubt, at the top of the list rests Peeta's undying devotion.

In a rare expression of gratitude, I tell her thank-you, the response genuine. Johanna has consistently been reliable for providing the blunt truth whenever needed. Hardly, however, has she ever been so gracious in doing so.

I guess we're all changing. Johanna has sprouted maternal compassion.

And I've sprouted a fetus.

Fantastic.

When the receiver goes dead, I fall back onto the sofa, craning my neck upward to stare at the ceiling. Although I still ache from concern for whatever I have lying ahead of me, my lungs finally take in a puff of air. My shoulders lift.

_Things will be alright._

I resort to spending quite a long time soaking in the bath, ridding myself of the dust and the grime from the previous day and my brief adventure in the woods this morning. The water soaks into my skin, softening my features, working out the knots in my muscles. The dull ache begins to subside.

As the tub drains, I tuck myself into a pale orange tunic that Peeta loves so much and begin to brush through my hair, leaving it to hang around my shoulders. I can't imagine there will be many days in the near future where I'll even take the time to groom myself properly, so I figure I should at least provide Peeta with one final, decent snapshot for him to commit to memory.

The afternoon is thinning quickly as I make my way downstairs. I have half a mind to trek to the bakery right away in the core of my impatience, but I reason that Peeta will be home soon. I might as well make him dinner. Last time I bothered to throw a meal together was the night that I declared I was ready to have a child—it seems only fitting that I prepare something when I tell him it all paid off.

We have some salted meat packed in the freezer from last week, and I begin to prepare the only thing I really know how. My stew is mediocre, generously, but I'm sure an attempt at anything else would result in a disaster. This will have to do.

Peeta doesn't return by sundown, which is fairly uncharacteristic of him, but I preoccupy myself with other thoughts. The stress that had faded with Johanna's pep-talk is slowly swelling at my seams, threatening to burst any moment. I have to be calm.

I've set the table and retreated to the living room, curling up on the sofa with a blanket wrapped around my curves when the door opens. In walks Peeta swathed in his black pea coat, his golden curls dusted with snowflakes like salt granules. I hadn't even realized it'd started snowing. His nose and cheeks are pink from the cold, his blush only deepening when he sees me; he stills in the doorway for a moment, his eyes raking me in. He concedes a look that says something to the effect of, "Is it okay that I'm here?"

Always so considerate. Always so humble.

I stand on my two feet in some gesture of acceptance, and he shrugs out of his coat and hangs it by the front door. He stands before me in a grey long-sleeve shirt that's knit and clings greedily to every muscle, and my throat grows dry for a moment. I don't suppose I'll ever get used to seeing Peeta. Still in his prime, even at thirty-five. Even after fifteen years of marriage, I still find new qualities of his that I love, qualities that I'd tried to ignore when I was younger, or was too self-absorbed to notice. The broadness of his shoulders. The fullness of his lips. The dimples at the base of his spine. There are few people on this earth that can claim to sport the natural attractiveness that Peeta always has; I wonder if one of them will be, in nine months, our child.

_Our child._

My stomach clusters.

He leaves a significant distance between us, and I find that, unlike yesterday, it's simply _too_ far; I'm about to step toward him when suddenly, his eyes flicker away, his nose crinkling.

Then those impossibly wide eyes grow even wider.

"You're _cooking_ again." His diction on the word _cooking _sharpens, his tone suspicious, questioning. Not angry at all, just curious.

"You sound enthusiastic," I reply sarcastically, but it's good-natured. I take a step toward Peeta.

He, in turn, takes a mirroring step toward me. "I'm not _un_enthusiastic. I'm just a little… worried, should I say?"

My feet inch me forward. "And why is that?"

"Because usually when you cook, it means you're… _up to something._"

I can't help the giggle that flits behind my lips, but my returning smile is apologetic. I have a lot to answer for.

"Peeta, I—"

"You don't need to apologize," he tells me softly in a tone so gentle and so accepting that it would sound wrong coming from anyone but him. Of course, he would be the only one to urge me _away_ from being sorry. He hates it when I feel guilty, whether I deserve to or not. "I just… please, Katniss. Don't shut me out. If something's going on, you can tell me. You can always tell me."

Sometimes, I wonder if he forgets that we're married, and that I love him unconditionally, and that I always do want him to be happy, whether I express this or not. He often acts like that shy sixteen-year-old boy on the tribute train heading to the Capitol. Even though he's since become a _man_, with all that may entail, he is still impossibly diffident at times.

"I know. I… I didn't know how to tell you. I still don't know how to tell you."

He cocks an eyebrow. "Tell me what?"

I feel the words bubbling up from my lungs, forming in the back of my throat, but they're a jumbled mess still attached too far back, afraid of release. I open my mouth but nothing comes out, and I seal my lips again, brows furrowing. _How am I supposed to go about doing this?_ I lift my knuckles against the hard line of my mouth, and he closes the distance between us, pressing a chaste kiss to my forehead. Suddenly, it all melts away.

I may be afraid and confused and mystified by what is yet to come, but I am not alone. I am never alone. I have the boy with the bread, I have his gentle forehead-kisses and his relentless concern and his cheese buns and his love. I suppose those can all remedy my panic.

And so, lifting my chin and cupping the sharp angle of his jaw with trembling fingers, expectant blue meeting anxious grey, I finally tell him.

"We're having a baby, Peeta."

* * *

_Sorry to not even dole out a glimpse of Peeta's reaction in this chapter. But, obviously, it'll come in the next update - through Peeta's POV, actually! Please tell me what you're thinking, by way of reviews, PMs, Tumblr asks... whatever! Any feedback is very much appreciated._

_See you next week! :)_


	4. Team

_I'm so flattered by the incredible response this story has been getting! There's nothing I could've ever done to deserve your kind reviews/messages and even the favorites and the follows. You guys rock. :)_

_And now we get to explore Peeta's response! From his POV, even, which I thought would be the best course of action. I warn you, the chapter gets a bit angsty toward the end because there's an issue that needs to be tackled, so just bear with me!_

* * *

**Chapter 4 – Team**

_Peeta_

Pregnant.

My wife is pregnant.

She stands before me with those molten iron eyes of hers peeking out from underneath her thick lashes, but her gaze is soft, almost shy; she looks like a small child admitting to breaking a vase, or to eating all the chocolate in the cupboard. Her blush is wild, highlighting her cheeks with strawberry hues.

A baby.

_We're actually going to have a baby?_

It takes a few moments to register, and even once it soaks me like a sponge, it still feels surreal, like I'm floating ten feet above the ground. It takes every muscle in my body to keep from closing the gap between us to hug her and kiss every inch of her skin and love her until the end of time, because that's all I can think to do to let her know what's running through my suddenly bursting mind. _A baby. Holy God almighty, a baby._

But, as made clear by the cherry tint of her cheeks, by the tightness in her jaw, Katniss is afraid. _Fear. _It easily accounts for her icing me out these past twenty-four hours. I know I could be disappointed by it, but to be realistic, something would be horribly off if Katniss was ecstatic about the news. I've known all along that I'd have to ease her into this reality—it's not like she'd deny me something for fifteen years and then magically reverse her opinion. I think _I'd_ be afraid if she was perfectly fine.

So I hold my ground, utterly speechless for the first time in ages, my mind whirring in attempt to process the news while formulating some sort of response.

But all that comes out is a pathetic, "Are you sure?"

I guess that's a decent start.

She nods softly, the smile that twists at her lips more guilty than genuine, and a knot forms in my chest because I crave more than anything to make it all better, to somehow make her happy again, but I can tell that she's terrified. Of exactly what, I'm not sure—the pregnancy? The actual baby? Of some skewed reality she's constructed inside of that pretty little mind of hers?—so I can't think of how to fix it. And I _hate_ not being able to fix things, incapable of easing her from whatever distress she's pinned herself in.

But even so, heat radiates from every inch of my body, racing through my electrified veins, my skin tingling. I feel lightheaded as the news floors me over and over again like a procession of waves that keeps lapping at the shore, growing more relentless with each swing of the tide. _A baby. My baby. Our baby._

I can hardly breathe.

"I talked to Mae yesterday," she says quietly to confirm it after a few moments have passed, her delicate timbre swelling in the silence. "And she… she ran tests."

So she is sure, then.

_Real or not real?_

My eyes intuitively fall to her stomach, skimming for lines or curves or some sort of _proof_, even though I know it won't be visible for several weeks. As expected, it's still flat underneath the pale orange tunic. She looks beautiful today—well, she's always so beautiful—and my own stomach clenches in disbelief that this incredible woman is going to _mother my child._ Is that even possible?

After craving this reality for nearly two decades, it seems impossible that this may actually be… _real._ Finally real.

But she looks so scared, so impossibly _young_ in her fear—I suppose fear shaves away at our maturity—and all I can think to do is comfort her, somehow, by any means. I lift an arm in a vague gesture that would be meaningless to anyone else, but she understands. Nowadays, Katniss always understands. She accepts my gesture and surges forward, eliminating the space between the two of us. My arms coil around her and press against her back, urging her body to arc against mine; she buries her face into my neck, and her skin feels so _warm._ I press a kiss to the outer shell of her ear, her familiar scent of pine and wood smoke swirling around us and embracing me welcomingly.

I feel her trembling slightly in my hold, which melts me even more. God, I wish I could fix everything.

"It's going to be alright," I promise her softly, and if there's anything in this world that I know to be true—besides my love for Katniss—it's this. It _will_ be alright. I won't let anything happen to her; even if the sun stops shining, I'll protect her with everything I have.

Against the skin of my neck, I feel her lips part as she whispers, "How do you know?"

I smile to her temple. "Because I'm not going to let you go through this alone," I tell her simply. I don't have to remind her that I've performed as her guardian in every instance she's needed me to since the two of us came back to Twelve. She knows this, and I can tell that she does by the way she goes quiet, accepting my guarantee.

The thought that maybe I can at least temporarily patch up the situation by changing the subject crosses my mind. For now, I decide that this will be the best course of action—she needs diversion, not overworked attempts at vocal comfort.

"And now," I begin, my voice a little brighter in attempt to both distract and cheer her up, "if you don't mind, I would _love_ to have some of whatever you're cooking."

The feeling of her eyelashes fluttering against the skin over my throat sends a shiver down my spine, but I can feel her smiling slightly. "You can stop pretending that you actually like my stew, you know."

"I've been pretending to love it for fifteen years," I prod back as she pulls her face from my neck, those incredible eyes locking with mine. _If our child has those eyes…_ I shudder at the thought. "Why would I stop now?"

The grin that works its way over her lips melts me a little as she rolls her eyes. "You're impossible, you know that?"

She begins to stride toward the kitchen, and I quicken my pace to slip my hands over her waist from behind, my fingers curling around her hipbones; she squeals a little at the contact. "Well, you must think I have _some_ redeeming qualities if you've elected to stay with me this long."

She tears away from me and replies flatly, "I'm just in it for the baked goods." Her voice is so severe I almost think she's not joking, but then a slight smile plays at the corner of her lips, and my stomach twists in comfortable knots all over again as a blush curls in my cheeks. Even at thirty-five, she still makes me feel like a hormonal school girl. How emasculating.

We fill two ceramic bowls up with stew and take our dinner to the living room; she folds herself up on the sofa, crossing one leg beneath the other as she cradles the small cup in her hands. I deviate briefly to light a fire. Once the fireplace fills with flames, flickering with shades from white to amber, I rotate to find Katniss's eyes on me, her gaze gentle and foggy. I elicit a slight smile from her when I prompt her with one of my own, but it's dim, and I can tell her mind is spinning with thoughts far beyond this moment.

I curl up beside her on the cushions, holding the bowl of stew that I'm a little nervous to eat in one hand, cupping her knee with the other. I ache to ask her what she's thinking regarding the baby, and I wonder if I should just tell her everything that's running through my mind—Does she want a girl or a boy? Which room should we give it? Who has she told, and who does she want to know?—but I bite my tongue. When Katniss is panicked, she often needs silence, if not outright distance. So I weakly pretend I've all but forgotten about her declaration because I assume that'd be best for her sanity.

However, I can't keep my eyes from involuntarily falling to her stomach again and raking over her body. I blink for a moment, thinking about how different she'll be in a few months, her body espousing more gentle curves, her skin soft and glowing as she billets this growing child, and—

"Peeta?" Her voice shatters my vacillating thoughts, and when my eyes flicker to meet hers I can tell she's noticed my wandering gaze. Her brow is cocked, her lips slightly parted and all I can think of is how much I want to kiss them, over and over again, telling her how _happy_ I am… But I can't. I can't suffocate her.

I reply with nothing more than a weak, "Yes?"

A feeble smile cracks through her firmly-pressed lips.

"Are you excited?"

And just like that, the floodgates swing open, a billion thoughts pooling in the front of my mind. _Of course I'm excited._ Electricity pulses through my system as I think of all the wonderful things that'll occupy the following months; I think of how Katniss will grow and blossom through the pregnancy, how she'll grow irritated with me half the time and too tired to function the remainder of the days and how hilariously _adorable_ it'll be (but when is she not adorable?) and how, when it's all over, I'll be able to hold, with my own two hands, what's just begun to develop below the skin of her stomach. How, at this time next year, I'll be cradling my son or daughter, watching a bubblegum tongue poke out from his or her mouth, eyes hopefully like their mother's, tiny toes and fingers…

Warmth propagates through my core. After fifteen years of being married to a woman I fall more in love with as every minute flickers by, the idea of being a father has never seemed so _right_, which is a feeling I'm sure will only expand as the weeks fly by.

So when she asks if I'm excited, I don't want to overwhelm her, or frighten her, but I can't lie to her.

So I tell her the truth.

"More than you can imagine."

She smiles at this, as if my admission has taken some degree of weight off her shoulders, but her eyes don't completely soften.

"But that doesn't mean I'm not scared at all," I continue, scooting a foot closer to her on the sofa so our toes brush. "I don't know exactly what to expect. Your pregnancy might be really difficult. The baby might be a handful. I mean, if it has any of you in its blood, there will be no controlling it." Through watering eyes, she smiles a bit at this. "There will be times when you're sick, and times when the baby is sick, and times when neither of us have any idea how to handle being a parent, but we're not the first people to do this. And we're definitely not the youngest, or the most unprepared. Katniss, we have… we're doing alright. We have a wonderful home and we don't have to worry about going hungry, and we have friends and family—your mother, Annie, Johanna, even Gale and Delly—and they can _help_ us, Katniss. And don't you dare forget that I can help you, too. I promise you that I will do everything I can to make this easier for you. If that means I have to get up in the middle of the night and bake you an entire cake, complete with forest green frosting, then so be it." A tear has brimmed over from the corner of her eye, but a slight laugh rings from the back of her throat, only prompting me to grin in turn. "It's going to be hard, but you know that, and I know that, so at least we're not fooling ourselves. But just think about… think about how _amazing_ this will be. To have something that's a piece of you and a piece of me, that… that we _created_, Katniss." I slip the bowl of stew I haven't yet touched onto the end table off the arm of the sofa so I can lightly skim my fingers over her flat belly. _There's another budding life under there, real or not real?_ "So it's okay to be scared, Katniss, because I definitely am, too… but please don't think you have no one to turn to. I know your independence means everything to you, but it's okay to seek out comfort when you need it. I'll give it to you. I'll give _everything_ to you."

She captures my hand as it circles over the fabric that ripples over her stomach, lifting my fingers up to her lips. Her eyelids flutter for a moment before she squeezes her eyes shut, another tear filing out from the edge as she kisses the pads of my fingers.

"I don't deserve you," she whispers against my skin.

I gently draw my hand from hers to brush the moisture from her cheek, my palms settling over her jaw, bracketing her face so she can't pull away. Not that she'd try.

"Well, either way, you're stuck with me now," I joke, donning a crooked smile.

She laughs again, following it up with a sniffle, and I press a kiss to her nose.

"I don't want you to think I don't want this baby," she tells me after a moment of silence, but her voice wavers. "I just… I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I feel."

"Take your time." I mean it.

Her own palms press over the back of my hands, holding them against her cheeks, the warmth of her skin dancing around my fingers. "But that doesn't mean _you_ can't be happy, Peeta. Don't… well, I know how you try to tone down your emotions for me—"

"Now why would I do that?" I gasp in mock-surprise.

This manages to draw the intended smile from her. "You're always doing everything you can to keep me calm, and while I do appreciate that… I need you to lead by example. Please. Maybe you can show me how to love this kid. You taught me how to love you, and to accept who I am, so maybe you can help me become a parent."

I ache to tell her that she doesn't need _me_ to serve as an example—she already knows how to mother, as she was just that for Prim—but I can't say this much. She wouldn't believe me if I did.

I remain relatively calm as I press a reverent kiss to the minute arc of her forehead. "We'll get through this together, alright?"

She grins up at me. "We always do."

Unlike in the moments leading up to this, I don't tone down my expressiveness, following her orders. I give her a split second to set her bowl aside before I hungrily tow her body to mine, one arm snaking around her hips to secure her against me while the other braids into her loose hair, positioning myself over her.

_We always do_. She couldn't be more right.

Before the rebellion, and even for several months after, Katniss had been so devoted to the idea of autonomy that she would often refuse assistance even when she'd needed it most, but things are different now. I like to think that she agrees with me when I tell her that two _is_ better than one, the cliché trite but true. For the past fifteen years, we've been taking on every obstacle as a team as opposed to separate units, managing to survive, to _succeed_. This won't be any different.

Her breath strains into little gasps, her adorably alluring sounds causing my pulse to quicken, warmth pooling in my stomach. I can feel any hope of restraint beginning to crumble as one petite but firm hand presses at the small of my back, the other bunching the bottom hem of my shirt; I spare her the trouble and drag it over my head, dipping down so I can remove her tunic. Such a shame—it's a beautiful garment.

Not to say I don't like it better off, though.

I bring my head to her stomach, my palms flattening just above her hipbones; can there possibly be something underneath there? My gaze flickers up to her, inquisitive, and I find she's taken her bottom lip between her teeth as she watches me look her over. I gulp. _She's so gorgeous._

"It's real, Peeta," she responds to my unvoiced question.

My lips curve against the center of her belly, barely skimming over the skin; I watch as goose bumps freckle her flesh in my mouth's wake. "It feels too perfect."

After fifteen years of wanting, and after several months of waiting… she's finally pregnant. We're _finally _going to have a baby.

But my kisses are hesitant, and she surprises me with a light chuckle.

"You're allowed to be excited, Peeta. Don't hold back."

I drag myself up over her so that our eyes are paralleled, holding myself level above her body with my elbows, her knees latched on either of my hips.

My voice is low, husky, nearly ravenous with both exhilaration and unalloyed longing as I murmur against the swell of her lips, "Glad I have your permission, Mrs. Mellark."

With that, I take her bottom lip between mine, kissing her for the first time since she told me. The action feels too long overdue, my breath thinning to a gasp. _This feels so right._ My teeth nip gently but with intent at her lip and my hands, which are placed innocently on her waist, curve slightly as my fingers hook against her sides. She squirms underneath me, a soft giggle transferring from her mouth to mine, which only encourages me on further. I like tickling her. She used to hate it, but recently it's become a method of mine for unraveling her when she's stressed.

Not to mention, there are few sounds in this world that I find cuter than her laughter.

We remove the remaining articles of clothing that cling to our skin, eliminating our barriers because I don't want her to think there's anything between us, anything keeping me from her, holding me back from taking care of her in every way I know how. She melts into me, her soft giggles paired with sharp gasps as I alternate my teasing with kissing. It feels so natural. _Everything_ seems so natural with Katniss.

After, we curl up and sleep before the fire tonight, her head bowed against the flat of my chest, and I kiss her forehead and whisper things to her until she falls asleep. I want more than _anything_ to talk about the baby, making plans and sharing our fears and our excitement but I suppose she's had enough for one night. Katniss will need to be eased into this situation, which may take weeks or even months.

But I'm prepared for anything with her.

She wakes me up in the morning before the sunlight has yet to shatter its way through our open windows by telling me she doesn't feel well, and within the next few minutes she's curled up on the bathroom floor, her thin fingers strained against the edge of the toilet bowl. I sit with my back propped against the tub, the cool from the porcelain radiating through my shirt, but with her head in my lap and her shoulders against my thighs, she keeps me warm. I part her hair with my fingers, over and over again, working to lull her back to sleep, and although her eyelids flutter from time to time, she doesn't rest.

"I can try to make you some breakfast," I murmur delicately, my palm swiping over her forehead pearled with tiny beads of sweat. Her olive complexion has dulled, growing pallid and translucent. I hope to God she's not like this every morning. She doesn't deserve that.

She shakes her head, clutching her chapped lips together. "I don't think I'll be able to keep anything down."

"Not even some nice blueberry pancakes?" She loves those.

But she shakes her head, mouth clenching tighter into a hard line.

"What about some cupcakes? We can dye the butter-cream green if you'd like. And I can pretend your frosting skills are better than mine."

Her head shifts again, but a twinge of a smile perks at the corner of her lips. Katniss can't wield a butter knife to save her life. She can shoot a squirrel straight through the eye from ten meters away, but ask her to slop some frosting on the surface of a cupcake and it ends up looking like a lopsided volcano.

I bend down, my lips barely grazing the shell of her ear in one final ploy.

"Cheese buns?"

She smacks my shoulder.

But within the hour, I've managed to coax her from the bathroom floor, leading her to the kitchen where I prop her up over the surface of the counter. She watches me with tired eyes as I flicker around her, lobbing different ingredients into a large silver bowl. But after a few minutes, her hand flies to my shoulder, stopping my movements.

I turn to look at her. Her mercury eyes are drilling into some random spot on my faded blue t-shirt, her cheeks flaming. She's blushing. Why is she blushing?

"Katniss?" I pry, my voice tapering off into a sharp, shallow breath. "Is something wrong?"

"Are you not going to the bakery today?" she asks quietly, eyes still angled down from mine.

A canister of oil and a small block of cheese are wedged in the crook of my arm, and I slip them onto the counter before turning to Katniss, skating in between her knees with my arms on either side of her waist.

"My wife is pregnant," I tell her, my voice soft and gentle as I do a poor job of concealing just how jubilant this makes me. I'm sure my eyes do little to hide my excitement. "I think I can call into work for the day."

"What are you going to tell Haymitch and Rory?" she shoots back the moment my question cuts off, her voice a little quicker, more anxious.

I feel my eyebrows tweak into a frown. I open my mouth to answer her, but before I can, her eyes finally meet mine, her jaw tense with worry.

"I don't want you to tell anyone that we're having a baby just yet," she murmurs.

"But… why?"

The corners of her eyelids crease, webbing out in tiny wrinkles, and for a moment she looks like she's about to start crying, so I pepper three kisses to her cheek, temple, jaw before I frame her face in my hands, leaning in so my nose almost skids across hers.

She's reverted back to avoiding eye contact, her fingers mindlessly toying with the trim of my shirt in a nervous tick of hers. She used to get flighty in moments of anxiety, often springing up to pace or even leave the room, sometimes the house… I'm more than thankful she rarely does that anymore, as that type of response is reserved only for extreme cases now, but instead she's become rather fidgety.

"Peeta, we're thirty-five. Most couples don't wait this long to have a baby. And I've been having preventative shots since I was, what… nineteen? And it took so long to even—"

I'm shaking my head. "Katniss, what are you saying?"

A miniature sigh parts through her lips as she bites the inside of her cheek.

"What if something happens?" she squeaks, her voice crackling with gravel.

"To the baby?"

She nods. She doesn't have to expand further, and to be honest, I'm thankful she doesn't; I don't want her to. This is hardly an issue I'd like to address.

But I suppose it's not something that would be healthy to ignore. Delly told us that she lost her first baby during the second month, and even Mae had warned us that it's not uncommon, especially the older we get, to have something like this happen early on in the pregnancy.

I don't say anything to Katniss. I find that I've unconsciously sucked my lower lip between my teeth, my jaw locked to stone, my shoulders tensed and squared. I can't think about this. I can't think about losing this baby. It doesn't matter that I've known about it for less than a day.

"Peeta, I—"

"I won't tell anyone," I answer quickly, choppily, intending for that to be the end of the conversation. Silence follows as she lifts her eyes to study me, trying to unearth exactly what's running through my mind, but I won't tell her.

I try to turn around to eliminate any chance at furthering this discussion, but her little hands are much stronger than they make show of, and they anchor me against her, lifting to my cheeks to cradle my jaw and keep my face aligned with hers. Her expression is boiling with concern, her eyes fierce in their earnestness.

"I just want to be careful. Prepared." Her thumb trails underneath one of my lower eyelids, a pleasant chill rising in its wake. "I mean, I have such awful luck with…"

She sniffles, not bothering to finish. I can tell that she trying to pass it off as indifference, but her voice has lowered about an octave with distress, and suddenly it makes so much sense as to why she's so afraid, why she's been hesitant and jittery since she found out.

She thinks she'll lose this baby. She's afraid to love it out of the fear that it may be ripped away from her like her sister, like her father, like Finnick and Cinna and nearly everyone in her life that had mattered. It's why she was hesitant to love me. Why she was hesitant to marry me.

And now, I realize, I should have known this all along. There is not a force in this world that Katniss has grown more terrified of than loss, as its dynamic is something she has never been able to avoid, not before the Games, and certainly not after. Maybe this was a truth I've known all along, deep down, as to why Katniss was hesitant to have a child in the first place and why, now that we will, she's hardly able to feel any excitement: it's dwarfed by something much greater.

It's that simple, isn't it?

Growing up and watching children ripped away from their parents, year after year, does have a toll on a person. Even after the old government crumbled, the structure disintegrating into ashes, its memory still has Katniss trapped into a fear she can never tear free from.

For the first time in forever, I don't know what to tell her. I can't promise her that nothing will happen to our child because it's not my promise to make. And I sure as hell can't tell her the truth, because that's a reality I'm not equipped to handle.

My fingers braid into her hair as I gently slant my lips over hers, the gesture innocent in its brevity, but it's authentic nevertheless. When I pull back, I quietly assure her with what I've been telling her all along, because I know it will be true, eventually, regardless of what happens.

"Things will be alright."

And they will. That doesn't mean we won't face our fair share of trials, but we've come too far to allow being kicked down keep us from getting back up again.

Things will be alright.

I'm sure of it.

* * *

_I've written a very basic outline of the story and I'm planning on having each month of pregnancy equate a chapter. Moreover, I already have baby names picked out and, unlike my last fic, I actually know exactly where I want this story to head, so hopefully it'll be a little less erratic and a little more calculated!_

_Any feedback (questions, comments, concerns) is always welcome! Reviews and PMs are appreciated, and of course, you can find me on Tumblr at_ _**avoirlalumiere.**_

_Have a fantastic weekend!_


	5. Month 2

_A/N - This chapter has been a bit of a beast to write. Sorry, it's a little choppy._

* * *

**Chapter 5 – Month 2 (February)**

_Katniss_

I can deal with discomfort. I can deal with pain. I can deal with exhaustion, and I can surely deal with a short fuse at any given moment.

I can handle all of those things. I've been operating under pain, distress, fatigue since the day I was born; the general sensations are not new. I can deal with them because I've been trained how to for the past thirty-five years.

But what I _can't_ handle is knowing that this discomfort, this pain, this exhaustion, is all because of a little seed sprouting in my stomach, its incisive tendrils anchoring into every wall of mine so that it's a part of me, leeching my oxygen, my energy, my everything.

And people think there's something "adorable" and "uplifting" about pregnancy.

Worst of all, one of those people happens to be my husband, who I love with every broken shard of my heart but _still_ can't seem to understand, as if he's some extraterrestrial being with alien feelings and behavior. Somehow, this baby is a miracle to him and it's not even distinguishable yet—how? How can you love a life you haven't met yet?

In turn, he handles _me_ as if I'm some divine creature, or as if I'm as crisply fragile as a dead leaf. He's always felt the inherent need to watch out for me—as if _I_ need protecting, of all people—but now that half of his genetics are swarming in my belly, it seems as if his guard has infinitely amplified. He needs to protect his miracle child and his wife all in one, and it's made him _so damn clingy._

But I shouldn't complain. Too many fathers in the world I grew up in were his polar opposite. Absent, cavalier, or reckless. Peeta is none of these.

On one unusually frigid February morning, when the sun has not yet broken through its cage and the bedroom is smothered in hollow, glacial air, I shudder awake to the warm fragrance of asiago and dill wafting down the hall which can only mean one thing: Peeta is making cheese buns. Instead of soothing me like it has for over a decade, however, the scent instead stirs something in the pit of my stomach, and I find myself reeling, barely making it to the bathroom before acid burns my throat.

He must've heard me retching from all the way downstairs, because he's at my side in a heartbeat, his fingers warmly collecting the stray strands of hair plastered to my cheeks, pulling them from my face as he silently offers me his company.

When it's over, and I collapse against the side of the tub, I moan melodramatically, "I think I'm dying, Peeta."

He leans across me to pull the lever at the end of the bathtub, a steaming rivulet of water pouring from the tap. "Maybe a nice warm bath will revive you."

"I never thought I'd be saying this," I groan as he settles at my side again, my cheek falling against his shoulder, "but maybe cheese buns aren't the best idea in the mornings."

"They're magic, Katniss. I swear, they have healing properties."

"Then why am I here?" I motion sloppily at my tangled body, slack over the tile.

"Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much…"

If I had the energy, I'd smack him; instead, I shoot him a shallow, dark glare, and his humor dissipates. God, I must look like hell.

He sighs empathetically. "Alright. So, cheese buns are out." With that, he helps lift me to my feet, his fingers pulling gently at the hem of my t-shirt—well, technically, _his_ t-shirt—until my torso is bare. I issue a necessary grunt as he undresses me for my bath; for now, I have to pretend I don't like being pampered.

But when I feel like I've just been trampled by a herd of elephants, being mollycoddled isn't exactly _undesired._

He helps me into the tub, his hand refusing to leave mine even after I'm submerged from the waist-down in the rising pool. We've discovered that, even though they don't completely cure the symptoms of morning sickness, warm pre-dawn baths have their advantages. They calm the waves in my stomach, holding the most extreme bouts of nausea at bay; they work out the kinks and the knots in my back from restless nights; they calm me and set my day spinning in the right direction. We do this every morning. Peeta wakes at an obscene hour to fire up the oven downstairs and experiment with bread or cracker recipes, then either wakes me or joins me in the bathroom to draw me a bath.

He loves babying me in the morning since he can't get away with it during the day. If we weren't so concerned with it shooting up red flags, Peeta would gladly walk into the bakery an hour or two late every day. But we need to keep this a secret. We must act normal.

However, the realm of "normal" is difficult to adhere to when my entire day, every day, is thrown for a loop. My mornings are turned upside down; the nausea usually doesn't abate until afternoon, and by then the possible hours for hunting are truncated. If my stomach wasn't so hypersensitive to smells, I'm sure I'd accompany Peeta in the bakery, but instead, most of my afternoons are spent sitting up in a branch or against a tree trunk in a shallow corner of the woods. It's not like I have many other options.

In these quiet hours, I dutifully avoid thinking about the baby. Peeta is definitely the optimistic idealist in our marriage; I'm the realist. I've never been one to muse over the abstract. I anchor myself in the present, in what I'm feeling _now_ rather than what I may be feeling in the future, and so while Peeta can look forward to everything this child will become, my mind is pinned to the materiality of the process. All I can think about is how this baby is hurting _me_. How it's making _me_ sick. How it's draining _me_ of _my_ energy.

It's such a selfish reality. But it's a reality I can't alter, only avoid devotedly.

So, instead of thinking about the baby, I concern myself with more customary thoughts to keep me relaxed. I often think about people I haven't seen in years—my mother, Gale, even Finnick and especially Prim—and the sensations of the world around me. While I'm out here, eluding all subjects relating to my pregnancy calms me. I may be exhausted and feel a little queasy, but I'm still here, in my woods, where the universe is so subdued, so permitting that I can hear myself think.

And then I return to my world beyond the woods, to my boy—my _man_—with the bread; we prepare dinner together and then eat at the table. If I'm not too tired, sometimes we'll take a walk afterwards. Otherwise, we'll curl up by the fire. He'll paint, I'll read or write, or _pretend_ to read or write as I carefully watch the strokes of his hand as they dance over the canvas.

And then some nights, we don't do anything, and above all, these evenings are my favorites. Sometimes we'll shower off together, and he'll shampoo my hair—which is growing far too long, but he begs me not to cut it—and then after, he'll tuck me into one of his old t-shirts that smells faintly of cinnamon and honey and nutmeg and everything Peeta is. We'll snake under the covers where he'll tell me about his day, and I'll listen. He never runs out of things to say, and I never tire of hearing the way his voice curls so musically around each word he speaks.

It's only when we're safe under the night's sheer blanket and snuggled in the dips of our bed that he talks of his baby. He's always hesitant when he begins, always so afraid that he'll scare me. He _does_ scare me, of course, but I need him to continue. It's the only time of day in which I face my condition head-on. Until the twilight hours, we don't acknowledge the pregnancy beyond its symptoms, because that's what's most comfortable for me.

But it's not what's best. We both know this. So, with his fingers woven into mine, he tells all.

_I wonder if he or she will look more like you or me._

_It'll probably crawl into the woods the moment it pops out, you know. You spend so much time out there that it may confuse the forest for your womb._

_I pray every day that this kid loves carbs and will know how to wield a piping bag._

_I hope he or she can sing like you._

With each word, the child becomes a little less like a foreign parasite and a little more like an actual baby. Unfortunately, I'm still hopelessly terrified of children, but his gentle inquiries chip away at the ambiguity so that this reality is digestible, piece by piece.

But the romance of the idea seems to dissipate by morning as I'm hunched over the toilet bowl, shoving a different type of cracker or bread roll between my chapped lips to extinguish the nausea. My mind refocuses on the now, not the future. It's my modified version of survival mode, calibrated to placate the mental strain of pregnancy rather than starvation or thirst.

Of course, only so many of my emotions can be dulled—hormones have their way of slugging me onto an emotional merry-go-round until I'm woozy and ferociously irritated. I've always been more short-tempered than Peeta, but the chemical messengers swimming through my systems seem to spike my volatility. In most cases, Peeta just chuckles as if my emotional instability is more adorable than frightening, but rarely does he proceed without apology. He knows me well enough to understand that groveling or expressing _some_ sort of regret will make the situation better. His pride is stable enough that he doesn't need to constantly defend it.

(That's one of the reasons that I could never have done anything like this with Gale. Gale would rather be caught in a pink tutu than, God forbid, _make an actual apology._)

Other than the morning sickness, the exhaustion, and the fatigue, the remaining symptoms don't span far beyond aching muscles and swelling breasts. However, both of those come with their perks: more obligatory back massages from my husband as well as some amusement on his behalf.

One evening, he's kneading over the grooves of my spine with those large, gentle baker hands—another trait of Peeta's that makes this process actually bearable, proving that there's literally no one else on this entire planet who I could possibly put up with and let father my child—when suddenly, his lips are gently sweeping over the curve of my neck.

"Peeta?" I cough, startled by the contact. In the past month his behavior toward me has become so much more chaste; I'm rarely in the mood to allow anything else. (An unfortunate setback, but I have a feeling the pregnancy hormones will swing in his favor soon enough.)

His hands don't deviate from my spine, but his lips pepper their way up to my ear where he gently takes the earlobe between his teeth. "Have I told you you're beautiful yet today?"

"Yes." It's already past dinner time, so I estimate that he has about five times today, if he's on his game. He always tells me at least twice in the morning, once when he comes home, and then usually a few times in the kitchen when we're prepping for dinner and I have some flour streaked in my hair.

He tells me I have that "pregnancy glow." I tell him he's blind and stupid and that he'd think I was glowing even if I weighed three hundred pounds and was drenched in animal blood.

"You know," his voice is lower, more evocative, filled with gravel; it triggers heat to pool in my belly. "Your breasts have probably doubled in size over the past month."

"They also feel like they've been pounded with a meat tenderizer."

His lips ghost at the nape of my neck. I shiver. "Interesting depiction."

"And I can't fit into any of my bras anymore," I tell him plainly, my eyes remaining pinned straight ahead.

"Who needs bras anyway? They're no fun."

"For _you_."

"We could always go to the market, you know." His teeth nip playfully at my shoulder, and strangely, I don't want to push him away. The heat that I've grown so familiar with over the past fifteen years, but has evaded me these past few weeks, suddenly ignites in my belly. "We have the money to buy new ones."

My jaw clenches. "Peeta—"

At my protest, a forlorn sigh drains from between his lips, his warm breath cascading over my shoulder. "I know, I know. It'd raise questions. I shouldn't have asked."

"It's not that I'm afraid to tell people," I lie. "It's just that Mae said for the first thirteen weeks—"

"You don't have to explain yourself to me." His voice is velvet, satin, pure warmth as is ribbons around my neck and shoulders. "I get it. You're still struggling to stomach this entire concept yourself—you don't need to be bombarded by anyone else. The last thing you need is some overzealous young women flocking around you, or even any rumors to be spreading in the first place."

Suddenly, his thick arms are cording around me, drawing me against him so that the expanse of my back is curved against his chest.

"I wouldn't dream of doing anything to hurt or upset you, Katniss. Please know that. I will protect you to the grave, whether it be against feral animals or gossip-driven civilians or morning sickness or fear. We're together in this, okay?"

I curl up against him, reveling in his heat as my cheek presses to the sharp edge of his jawline. "Okay."

His head turns slightly to press a kiss to my cheekbone, and his arms shift to accommodate me more fully. A gentle silence brackets us together, and for a moment, I let my eyes flutter closed as I focus on nothing beyond the way his chest arches against my back comfortably as he breathes in and out.

And then his voice slices through the silence, sending a sharp jolt through my arms and legs.

"Well, since we're not going to the market, does this mean you'll take my advice and forget the bras from here on out?"

It takes some commitment to writhe in his grasp, but I manage to turn just enough to deliver playful smack to his shoulder.

* * *

One particular day in the heart of February, I wake even before Peeta does with an atypically violent wave of nausea. A few tortuous minutes elapse before he finds me in the bathroom; he's groggy and swaying from exhaustion, but at least he's _here_.

"This kid is quite the little devil, isn't it?"

I swipe the back of my hand over my chapped lips. "You can say that again," I cough.

He stands to fetch me a glass of water.

"You know, Mae told me that there are pregnant women who don't even have morning sickness at all," I croak, sounding more like a drunken frog than a human being.

He lowers himself to me, slipping me the cool glass. I take it greedily in my trembling hands. "Maybe you'll be one of those lucky women the next time around." He winks.

I can feel my eyes growing so wide that I wonder if they'll actually pop straight from my head as my glare pointedly finds him.

"We are _never_ doing this again, Peeta Mellark. You had permission to impregnate me once, _once_, and if you _ever_ ask again I will fling myself from the roof. Understand?"

He rolls his eyes in what I consider to be concurrence, but doesn't say anything else.

A while later, when the worst of the nausea has sunk, he takes me downstairs with him, propping me up on the counter by the sink as he rifles through the fridge.

"So, anything with dairy is out."

"Right."

"And no chocolate?"

"No chocolate."

"Peanut butter, too?"

"Yeah."

"And the rye bread was also a bust." He runs his fingers through his disheveled curls. "Damn. Our kid is a picky eater." He shuffles to the pantry, disappearing behind the shelves for a moment before emerging with a tin canister and a small carton in his hands.

I frown.

"How about we try out my _infamous_ nut and raisin bread?"

My stomach flips and I heave into the sink.

* * *

Despite my initial physical reaction to the suggestion, when he comes thumping down the stairs sporting a blue plaid button-up and his typical work khakis, I'm finishing up the last piece of toast, reveling in the odd feeling circling in the pit of my stomach. For the first time in weeks, I'm eating something that isn't eager to make a sudden and unwelcome reappearance.

His brows lift in surprise. "Do we have a winner?"

"I think I might need another hour to make sure, but…" _Huh_. Who would've thought the bread that'd saved me and my family when I was only eleven is the first thing my stomach doesn't tetchily reject?

He saunters up behind my chair, wrapping his arms around my shoulders before pressing a chaste kiss to my cheek. "I'm going to head to work. You should try to get some sleep if you're feeling better—you look absolutely exhausted."

I can practically _feel_ the dark circles carving the skin beneath my lower lids.

"If you do take a little nap, and afterwards you're feeling up to it, I'd love to see your beautiful face around the bakery this afternoon. Apparently, Little Ollie has an ear infection and has been screaming his head off the past few nights, so poor Rory has been about as lively as a metal pan. We could surely use an extra hand."

"I'd be about as lively as a _rock_, Peeta." I sigh. "I can't even go into that building anymore. My sense of smell is completely inverted, and I look like I've been buried six feet under for a month."

"And you're still as radiant as ever." His voice is thick, sappy like molasses, and I want to gag and giggle all at once. He kisses my cheek once more before disappearing into the front hall. The sound of the door unsealing ricochets about the walls, a cold gust of February air billowing through the house. "Love you," he shoots out. I echo the promise back to him, and just like that, he's gone.

I take his advice to heart and sling my fatigued body up the stairs, sloppily falling into bed like a sack of bones, but my back is sore and my head is aching from pressure. After quite some time of restless tossing and turning, I decide that the gods must be dead set on keeping me awake, so I crawl out of bed and slip into a pair of Peeta's sweatpants and a wool sweater.

The house is cold and creaky as I pace through the halls, occupying myself with empty busywork; I'm too drained to venture through the woods but too skittish to rest. I dust off surfaces, sweep the front hall, fluff pillows. I snack as I go along—Mae said I'll need to put on anywhere from 30-40 pounds this pregnancy since I'm underweight as is—and around noon I sit down at the table for a cup of peppermint tea to quell the nausea.

My skin feels dry and grimy, my bones aching from being cooped up in the house all day. Even though I don't have the energy to stay out, I decide I need some fresh air, so I slip on my snow boots and re-braid my tangled hair, slipping outside for a few minutes. But it's not enough, and my lungs feel tight, and my head is spinning, so I trudge out beyond the porch. The snow crackles under my boots and the breeze bites at my skin until I'm shivering, but once the air starts swirling in my chest I need more, always more, so I journey out to the woods.

I don't go deep beyond the tree line, not daring to test my endurance or energy; instead, I curl up at the base of a tree and lean my head back, listening to the beautiful resonance of silence and the way my mind drains clear, my muscles uncoiling. Tucking my knees into my chest, I foolishly allow the exhaustion to seep past my seams; only once I've let myself relax and unwind do I suddenly realize how drowsy I am.

A slight squirt of panic trickles down my spine as I realize that I shouldn't have come out here, that I should've just laid myself down for a nap back home, but it's too late. My body is growing numb from exhaustion, and my voice of reason has fled.

And now, finally, the rest I'd been craving for hours this morning comes to visit, and I fall asleep against the roots of the oak.

* * *

"Sweetheart—oh, Jesus. Are you okay?"

A warm, leathery hand gently shakes me awake. The darkness behind my lids is instantly replaced with the gloom beyond them once my eyes flutter open, and my heart jolts between my ribs.

"What t-time is it?" _How long have I been out here?_

"It's almost eight o'clock. Damnit, you're an ice cube." Haymitch's hands are cupping my face, palming my forehead. His touch is fire. "Are you hurt?"

"N-no," I stutter out, but my entire body is wracked with shivers. My sweatpants are damp from the snow, my skin plastered in a coat of ice. "I just—I f-fell asleep. I d-didn't want—didn't mean t-to, Haymitch."

He grunts, his arms coiling around me as he helps lift me to my feet. The faint stench of alcohol bleeds from his clothes, the scent warm and embracing. I sway on my feet a little, but he holds me up.

"You can't do this, girl," he scolds, his voice rocky and low. This whole scenario is uncomfortably familiar, but my brain is disoriented, spinning and blackened with confusion. I blink, fighting for memory, but nothing surfaces.

My teeth chatter.

"Let's get you home," he grunts as he helps steady me on my feet, but I can't feel anything below my shins. My hands have numbed, too.

_Home_. The word reverberates off the walls of my skull, over and over again. As if my blood wasn't already frozen solid in my veins, a chill slices through my core like a jagged icicle, piercing my flesh as it drags down my body.

"P-Peeta?"

I can hardly muster more than a single-word question, but nevertheless, Haymitch knows exactly what I'm asking.

"You scared the boy half to death… right into an episode, Katniss. Worse than he's had in _years_."

"Oh g—Haymitch, is… is he—he okay?"

My feet aren't moving. _Why aren't they moving?_

He seems to understand that my extremities are too numb to carry myself through the woods, so he hoists me up into his arms. "Well, his pregnant wife didn't come home tonight, so I think it's safe to say he's about to go into cardiac arrest."

Heat skewers my core. "He told you?" I hiss.

"Of course he told me," he snaps back as we emerge from the tree line. "He was having a _panic attack_, Katniss. He had no idea where you were, since you always come home before sundown… Sweetheart, after all that boy has been though, he has every right to be paranoid as hell. You can't keep running off on him like that."

"I… I didn't—m-mean—" My tongue feels swollen in my mouth, my shivering spiking. Spots swirl behind my lids and the exhaustion from earlier today seems only augmented at the moment... what the hell is wrong with me?

I'm hardly more animated than a limp rag doll by the time we return to the house. Haymitch juggles me for a moment to pull the door open, and the moment we're in the front hall, my droopy eyes flicker to the living room to see Peeta coiled up on the couch, elbows propped on his knees, his palms carving into his cheeks. The sound of the door slamming behind us jolts him to life, however, and the instant he sees me he's on his feet, huskily removing me from Haymitch's grasp.

"Katniss, oh—oh _god_, you're freezing!" He holds me so tightly against his chest I wonder if I'll crumble into ash with the force. "You're alive. Thank heavens, you're alive."

"I'm s-sorry—"

He silences me with a kiss, his lips an open flame against my glacial mouth. We're both trembling, me from the cold and him from the tension I can feel straining through his muscles, and I feel a tear bead from the corner of his eye and wet my already sticky face. "You can't do that to me again, Katniss," he chokes, his voice quavering as he presses his forehead to mine. "You could've died! You could've killed—"

He doesn't need to finish. We're both thinking it. I've endangered the baby, too; how could I have been so reckless?

Haymitch grabs some blankets as Peeta gently lays me out over the sofa cushions, beginning to peel my sopping clothing from my body. When Haymitch drops a pile of comforters at my feet, Peeta begs him to call Mae; he disappears for a moment, leaving me and my husband alone.

I'm silent as Peeta strips me down, partially because my mind is too tangled to string together even a short clause, and partially because the shame bursting in every corner of my body renders me speechless. His eyes are red-rimmed, his hair disheveled with wayward golden tendrils curling in every possible direction. His pupils are slightly dilated—a telltale sign of an abating episode—and his entire body is juddering as he wraps me in first one blanket, then two, packaging me up like an arctic burrito.

He doesn't say anything to me as he moves. I can see endless threads of words swimming behind the dark blues in his eyes, but he doesn't afford me with a single glimpse of what's running through his head, and it kills me.

Haymitch returns after a few moments.

"Mae's on her way over. Says the girl probably has hypothermia and that we should fill some bottles with hot water, wrap them in a cloth or something, and use them to warm her torso area. Don't do the feet or the fingers first, or she may go into shock."

The look Peeta gives me shatters me twice over. His chest is heaving, his jaw screwed tight, and there's a degree of fear lodged in his eyes that's a thousand years old.

"Did she… did she say anything about…" He doesn't want to say it, possibly even more than I don't want to hear it.

Haymitch shakes his head. "No word on the baby, but she could probably examine her when she gets here."

Peeta's nod is curt, and he crouches at my side, his hand sweeping my damp hair from my face. My eyelids ache to close, but I'm afraid of what could happen if I allow them to. I need to stay here, above consciousness. I can't leave Peeta again.

"I'll go get some water bottles," Haymitch huffs, flickering from the room a second time.

When he's gone, Peeta rises and scoots onto the edge of the sofa by my waist, his palm cupping around my cheek so gently, as if I'm made of glass.

"Are you okay?" he murmurs.

I'm clueless as to how I should answer that. _Yes_, I'm alive. _No_, I can hardly breathe and my feet and hands could be amputated for all I know. _Yes_, I'm more comfortable now that I'm not soaking wet. _No,_ I nearly gave my husband a heart attack and possibly injured our child.

I decide it's best to avoid the question. "Peeta, I—I made y-you have an… an episode," I slur, my muscles coiling like wire, my throat constricting. "You h-haven't had one—one in m-months—"

The warmth from his hand is replaced by violent cold as he draws it away from my cheek, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. He doesn't say anything.

His silence only claws at me deeper, scraping violently at my flesh. Despite the layer of ice cloaking every inch of my skin, heat bubbles in my core, paired with a furious swell of guilt. "I didn't m-mean to do it," I whisper, my voice strained as it's tugged from the back of my throat. "I just… I couldn't b-_breathe_ in here, and I—I needed s-some air, and I w-wasn't trying to go—to fall asleep, it just happened. P-Peeta, I… I'm so sorry. I didn't—never meant t-to hurt you. Please d-don't be angry..."

His entire body stills, muscles growing rigid as stone, and I watch as he slowly lowers his palms from his face to turn and look at me.

"Katniss, you—you think I'm _angry_ with you?"

Granted, anger is one of the most foreign emotions to Peeta, as I've only seen him genuinely furious a handful of times in our entire marriage. But whatever's fizzling from his skin now seems pretty close.

When I don't answer, he runs his fingers through his hair in frustration. "I'm not—Katniss, I'm not mad at you. I'm beyond thankful you're alright, but I was scared out of my mind just a few minutes ago and so my emotions are on overdrive…" He sighs and then leans over, pressing a chaste kiss to my forehead, his thumb delicately brushing my cheek. "There are very few things you could do to aggravate me, alright? Accidentally passing out in the woods and getting hypothermia hardly qualifies."

The smile I gift him with is apologetic and weak, but it still prompts him to kiss my nose, and just for a moment I tell myself that maybe things will be alright.

Haymitch soon returns, two plastic canisters of water in one hand and a small wad of dishrags in the other. He hands them to Peeta, who wraps the bottles in the cloths before snaking his hands underneath the spool of blankets to press them to my stomach and chest. So much for any degree of modesty.

The heat from the vessels lances my skin and I jolt upon contact.

"Too hot?" Peeta raises an eyebrow.

I swallow and shake my head, shifting my arms from my sides to take the bottles from him, slowly moving them across my skin. An involuntary hiss swells in the back of my throat as I revel in the newfound warmth, however localized.

Haymitch hovers several feet away from us, lifting an arm to scratch the back of his head. "Well, now that we know the ice princess isn't dead and she's got about twenty pounds of blankets on her, I think my work here is done."

I'm not sure who is more startled—me or Haymitch (probably Haymitch)—when Peeta suddenly rises, pulling our old mentor into a tight hug.

"Thanks for bringing her home," he mutters quietly, and Haymitch awkwardly pats him on the back, observably a little unsure of how to deal with actual physical contact. After all, people simply don't touch Haymitch Abernathy unless it's to slap him out of drunken inertia.

"Yeah, my pleasure. You should probably stop hugging me, or I won't do it again next time."

That gets Peeta to break away pretty easily.

With a nod to my husband and a satirical salute in my direction, our old mentor staggers out the front door just as a tiny woman wearing nothing over her bleach white lab coat passes him.

"I came as soon as I could," Mae pants as she crosses to me, crouching down at my side as Peeta lingers behind her. He nervously folds his arms across his broad chest, his eyebrows knit in anxious concern, and it wrings my stomach like a dishcloth. "How are you feeling, Katniss?"

"Like I j-just got mowed over by a g-glacier."

She sighs, first taking my pulse, then fumbling in a pouch she has tied around her waist for a thermometer. "Having problems breathing? Feeling a little disoriented?"

I nod as she begins to unwrap me from the tangle of blankets.

"Well, I'm going to need to take your core temperature, which unfortunately requires a thermometer that _doesn't_ go in your mouth—"

My cheeks prickle, a violent shiver wracking through my core. Even though I've been married for fifteen years, lying completely naked on a couch in front of my husband _and_ a doctor still sends me into a small bout of panic.

Just as she's unwinding the last sheet from my body, Peeta's eyes lock with mine. He must see the anxiety lodged there—he can read me better than I can myself sometimes—and he coughs, shuffling backwards. "Can I get you something, Mae? Coffee? Tea?"

"I'm alright, but could you get her something warm to drink? Make sure it has no caffeine."

His eyes meet mine. "Chamomile sound okay?" He offers me a shy smile, looking more like the bashful eleven-year-old boy who tossed me the bread than the thirty-five-year-old man about to brew me some tea.

I nod as I roll onto my stomach, burying my face in the cushions before I can gauge his reaction. The stagnant air of the house feels like hoarfrost on my skin, and I try to focus on steady breathing and minimizing the shivering instead of Mae taking my temperature.

"I'll spare you the discomfort of asking me and just tell you that the baby is probably fine, Katniss," she says suddenly, evenly. "Hyperthermia is a much greater concern during pregnancy than hypothermia, unless your body temperature drops significantly."

The feeling that blossoms in my chest is just as surprising as it is unfamiliar. _Relief?_

"But there are some possible complications, so I don't want to mislead you into thinking you're completely out of the woods. Most of these won't be noticeable until either much later in the pregnancy or even after the birth, so we'll just have to be patient."

I empty a sigh into the sofa cushion. "I feel s-so stupid."

"People make mistakes all the time. What matters is that you're alive. And—" She removes the thermometer—"it looks like your core temperature is at ninety-four point six. Hypothermia is anything below ninety-five, so you're just under."

She instructs me to sit so that she can re-swathe me in the blankets rumpled up at my feet. "What am I s-supposed to do now?"

"Put on some nice, snug pajamas and drink lots of warm fluids; don't go jumping into any hot baths for a bit, but stay buried under blankets. I'm sure you have a thermometer somewhere—make sure Peeta takes your temperature fairly regularly just to ensure you're getting it back up to where it needs to be. In regards to the baby… unless you experience abdominal pain, cramping, or any spotting-related symptoms, you should have nothing to stress over. Just take it easy, alright?"

My response is delivered through a quick nod, my fingers curling around the fabric of the comforters as I clutch them tighter to me. The guilt that had been swarming me for the past fifteen minutes has finally begun to quell.

"Thank you, Mae." My voice rings with sincerity.

She smiles warmly at me, resting a hand on my shoulder as she stands. "And make sure you take care of Peeta, too. I'm sure this night hasn't been easy on him."

_You don't even know the half of it._ "Yeah. It's—it's been rough."

"Stop by in the morning if things haven't improved. Otherwise, I'll see you in two weeks for your three-month checkup, alright?"

I give her another slight grin, and with that, she disappears with an affable half-wave.

Upon hearing the sound of the front door slamming, Peeta emerges from the kitchen, a steaming mug clamped in one quivering hand. "She left already?"

"Didn't have m-much reason to stay. My, uh, my t-temperature's a little low, but I'm okay."

He slips the mug onto the end table beside the arm of the sofa, crawling onto the cushions beside me, his arms snaking around my blanket-swathed figure.

"And… and the baby?"

His gaze is brimming with hesitant anxiety, his jaw tight in anticipation. The love he has for this child is so impossibly frightening in its magnitude, but somehow, it's comforting all the same. It reminds me of exactly why I'm doing this. For him. Always for him.

I manage to extricate an arm from the tight binds of the sheets, lifting my palm to bow around his rigid jaw.

"She can't know for sure, but she thinks… she says it should be alright, Peeta."

The look of relief that launders Peeta's features is so resolute it's practically contagious, and his eyes begins to water as he eliminates the distance between us, his thick arms bringing me into his hold. He squeezes me like a piping bag, and even through the blankets I can feel him trembling. He doesn't say a word, but he doesn't need to.

It isn't until we're lying in bed several hours later that he really says anything, the softness of his voice sharp in the quiet.

"I thought I was going to lose you, Katniss," he whispers, his arms flexing around me. His skin feels like fire on mine—but then again, doesn't it always?—as we're tucked beneath the covers, my back flush against his chest.

I lower my fingers to twine with his, moving his palms to rest on my still relatively flat belly. "You have no idea how sorry I am." I've never been fluent in apologies, but after tonight, it seems only requisite.

"I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't be so paranoid, I just…" His forehead presses against the crest of my shoulder, his grasp tightening even more. "I couldn't stop thinking about what would happen if something were to happen to you. You're my entire life, Katniss." His thumb brushes over my belly. "_Both_ of you are."

I swallow hard, willing myself not to cry. Damn these stupid baby hormones.

We lie still for several moments as I revel in his heat, his pliability, the strength of his arms, the slightly unsteady rise and fall of his chest. And then, ever so gently, I feel his lips pressing to the juncture of my shoulder and neck.

His voice is as soft as a dove's call.

"Will you sing for me?"

Normally, I'd reject the request; attributable to my natural self-consciousness, my lullabies are rare. But, after all that's happened, I know I can't deny him this simple comfort. Hours later, and he's still trying to unwind.

So I do. I sing him the melody I used to sing for Prim when she was ill, the melody I sang for Rue in the pasture. The melody I sang to him on our wedding night. The descant is so simple, so soothing, and upon the first few notes I can physically feel him beginning to uncoil, his breath evening out as it washes over my skin.

After several minutes the notes begins to slur, swirling with the sound of the breeze beyond the window and the cadence of Peeta's breathing; my consciousness begins to fade. As we both begin our longwinded descent into sleep, I can't curb a sudden, new thought as it flutters to the front of my mind.

I wonder if I'll sing the baby to sleep one day, too.

* * *

_You can find me on Tumblr at **avoirlalumiere**._


End file.
